Invitation to an Exhibition

Sled Ride in Vermont, collage by Varujan Boghosian

Invitation to BigTown Gallery exhibition

Modern Treasures for the Holidays

Inside of the exhibition invitation

Big Town Gallery

99 North Main

Rochester, VT 05767

802-767-9670

The opening of Modern Treasures for the Holidays is opening this Saturday, November 28th at 4 p.m. at BigTown Gallery. If you click on the image above, the image should open in a large file, allowing you to read the names of the participants--but just in case it doesn't work, here are the featured artists: Varujan Boghasian, Lizi Boyd, Leslie Fry, Pat dipaula Klein, Abby Rieser, Charles Spurrier, Charles Shackleton, Miranda Thomas, Holly Walker, Bhakti Ziek.

Again, I am not sure if the writing on the left page of the invitation will show up in the larger image or not, but it describes the Wish Wall that is going to part of the Holiday Exhibition. Anyone can put as many wishes as they want into the wall. It is going to be a sea of color and I am sure it is going to emanate good energy. I like having more than one wish possible--then I can be selfish with some and generous with others. Of course, when one wishes something like "peace for all" or "health and prosperity for everyone" then I guess it covers oneself as well as others.

If you read this blog regularly, you know Holly Walker and I are friends. She just received great news--her work is on the cover of a new book, Masters: Earthenware by Ray Hemachandra, editor with Matthias Ostermann, curator. Pat dipaula Klein is also a friend of mine--we both were teachers at Philadelphia College of Textiles & Science (PCTS) at the same time--she in print design, me in weave. She has lovely embroideries in the exhibit.

I have a range of work in the show, some handpicked lampas weavings where I dyed the warp with natural dyes using ikat resist techniques. Also some handwoven jacquards as well as digitally woven jacquards. Birds 2, below, is one of the pieces that will be at the gallery. The background cloth, woven on a fully electronic jacquard loom at PCTS is based on a historical Italian damask from the 14th century (if my memory is right--not that I was alive then, remembering from history of textiles class). The top cloth, woven with fine, almost-invisible-as-a-single-strand silk, I handwove on a 19th century jacquard loom at Fondazione della Seta Lisio, in Florence, Italy.

I love that Birds 2 encompassed old and new modes of jacquard weaving in its making, and that the historical image is done on the new equipment, while the contemporary image (my drawing from birds in a plaza) was done with the historical equipment. The material is also flipped--silk in a form that is hardly used today for the top panel and polyester and cotton for the background. I am always talking about a continuum in weaving that goes from the first weaver to the present weaver (me, you, us), a continuum of ideas, of processes, of kinetic knowledge that helps shape an awareness of the world. Weaving is a process of unity--of bringing individual elements into a whole--chaos to order. I am sure there are weavers in this continuum who would fall in every one of the categories listed in my last blog, we are diverse as well as similar, but it wouldn't surprise me if themes like structure, systems, stories, and identity cropped up again and again.

Birds 2 by Bhakti Ziek

can be seen at BigTown Gallery holiday exhibition

By the way, I am starting to read a manual on Dreamweaver, in preparation of making my own website, one for my husband, and helping two friends create their own. Reading this (it definitely is not easy reading) reminds me how some readers must feel reading The Woven Pixel, by Alice Schlein and myself. Understanding technology is learning a foreign language. I just want to open the application and get on with it--as our readers probably want to do with jacquard or dobby design--but getting an overview is important and since I am basically ignorant about web design, I have decided to take the time to read through once, acknowledging that much of it is going over my head, not in my head. When I finish, I will start again with the book open and do their exercises, as well as start my web site. Again, impatient, I want this to happen tomorrow, but I already see that assembling the parts is going to take time and if I want to put a realistic goal on my page, I will aim for a spring debut. Just my long-winded way of saying to those of you who have The Woven Pixel, or those of you who are planning on getting it (a good holiday gift), it is an instructive book that will help you become proficient, but it still is a step by step process. Take the time to read it from the start, and to follow along with the instructions, and soon you will be master of the information.