My latest finished Tapestry from a series of interior spaces I have been weaving. Finished Dec 2011, it is about 8.5 x 10. This one is of my Mother-in-law Judy’s yellow skylight in her casita in Todos Santos, Baja.
I have been working on a series of Tapestries using abstracted architectural imagery that I capture with my phone camera. I am calling them “Escapist Domestic Landscapes.” Here is a little blurb I wrote about the series:
Escapist Domestic Landscapes
I came to Tapestry after a period of upheaval interrupted my art making process and left me in a funk. I became desperate to make my way back to a consistent, everyday, familiar art practice and so began snapping low quality photos of corners, ceilings, lights, and other parts of building interiors on my phone camera, which was always handy. I worked with the imagery in my sketchbook, further abstracting it, adding color and elements of fantasy into the ordinary snapshots of fluorescent light fixtures, ceiling fans, shower doors, and skylights. I had a new freedom to go about the most routine parts of my day with an eye for subject matter that I could embellish, exaggerate, and tweak. The result was a more livable universe. Soon it became clear that Tapestry, with its set boundaries and material warmth, was the means by which this sparse yet welcoming architectural imagery wanted to be expressed.
Tapestry works well for expressing a 2D picture plane in a textile that cannot help but be sculptural in the end. I like that juxtaposition- flat yet sculptural. In this series, I have made use of the double-weft interlock and pointed dovetailing techniques to get bold outlines on my shapes, while building a structurally sound tapestry. Color is of the utmost importance to me, so I hand dye my yarns to be sure to have access to the colors I see in my mind’s eye.
