It's the 1st of September and I am feeling accomplished. It's a nice feeling. After 2 years of weaving away at 48 small format tapestries, they are finished and going on exhibition this Friday, September 6th. The exhibition, Haiku, will be on display until October 25th.
From the beginning I knew it was going to be a long process. It has been awhile since I have taken on a large weaving project. Fitting in the time for weaving is always a bit hard. One thing I did to commit to the project was apply for an exhibition at the Saint John Arts Centre. I knew if my proposal was accepted I had no choice but to dig in and get weaving.
After finishing the first 12 tapestries- and learning my proposal for Haiku was accepted- I launched right into the 2nd set of 12, and quickly lost momentum. The second set was proving to be much more complicated for me. I was trying to squeeze too much detail into a very compact space. I walked away from the loom for several months. During that time, I reflected on what my intentions were with these small format weavings. These tapestries were never meant to be an exact depiction of the photograph which inspired them. They were meant to be a bit impressionistic-more about shape and colour- the feeling of nature.
I conceded that I needed to unweaving what I had done for the second round of tapestries. with my goals reassessed, I was back at it for the long haul. I had to constantly remind myself that I was not looking for these tapestries to be photographic, but abstracted with elements of reality. I struggled with that balance through the whole process.
With a deadline looming, I kept myself on track by making a very rigid weaving schedule from which I did not stray. Most days that I sat to weave, I was there for 8-10 hours straight. I may have taken a small break for lunch or supper, then it was right back to it.
There were a couple of tapestries, where I wanted to find an exact match to a shade in the photo, but my colour choices were limited. At those times, I would get up and look at other options than the wool I was using, or I'd mix colours to get what I wanted. Sometimes, I had to substitute for a darker or lighter hue. It's hard not to get hung up on details you think are going to make or break a piece, but really the impact of the changes I made were minimal.
Come see for yourself! I'll be at the opening Friday evening and would love to see you!
