Technology Scream

March weaving by Bhakti Ziek

(whole image at top, details at bottom)

On this dreary wet frustrating day, I will start with an image of my finished weaving. I don't have a title yet, which is unusual for me since the weaving usually "tells" me its name while I am making it. For now, it is March weaving. My reading of A Path with Heart tells me that many people, when mediating, notice their mind stories are often self-aggrandizement's--and that certainly applies to me--not when I am meditating, since that is rare, but when I am weaving. I think this weaving is a very good beginning for a body of work, but perhaps it is not quite the shining, magnificent, awesome work that I saw as I was making it. Sometimes when I finish a work I have to put it away for a month or so before I can see it for what it is, rather than my expectations and judgements. This one is on my wall right now, which is a tribute to my early acceptance of it. It needs to be mounted and finished, but I have months to procrastinate on that.

So I have been fussing about the learning curve of new technology--in my case, a new scanner and a new digital camera. The camera is already not working--and the really frustrating aspect is that I purchased it from a vendor online, through Amazon, and, unbeknown to me on ordering, it came from Hong Kong. I have nothing against Hong Kong, but the warranty for the camera is not valid here in the USA--and I just feel like screaming. I am not a big consumer, so the idea of exchanges and exchanges that mean shipping overseas, is really frustrating me and ruining my day. Those of you who do shop online and through Amazon know that it also means email correspondence, no easy recourse to a living human being, and probably weeks until this gets resolved.

On Sunday I went to Montpelier to see Don't Know, We'll See: The Work of Karen Karnes by Lucy Massie Phenix, which was shown through the Green Mountain Film Festival. Both Karen and Lucy were there, which was very nice, and the movie was quite inspiring. At one point Karnes' studio (and house?) burnt and the film shows her the very next day going through hot smoldering destruction, pulling out a pot or two (the last kiln load of work survived). I could not believe that she was so cheerful--not a moment of self-pity. She says she is lucky because it was only things that were lost, it could have been much worse. So I am going to tell myself the same thing about today--it's only a tool/toy and even if the situation doesn't resolve itself to my satisfaction (and it probably will), it's only a thing.

Maybe you noticed that I have added a link on the right side of this blog where you can sign up for email notification that I have posted a new page. A friend asked me to do this, so I looked it up online (so technology does have some good to it today) and added it to my blog. This might mean that some of you who click often looking won't have to do that, and my numbers on the click counter won't grow so fast, but I am sure it will be more convenient for you, if you want that type of notification.

Code Nightmare

Code One

I don't usually think I dream, but this morning I woke from a nightmare with all the physical sensations of panic and distress, along with relief, since I "found a solution" to the problem just before I woke. In my dream I was suppose to give a talk to students at a college in California (I know it was California but didn't know the school) and I was bringing sample fabric rather than images to the presentation. I know I went with a friend to the campus originally, where I met the people and set-up the appointment, and I remember being given a brochure with a map showing that I was at campus two, somewhere in the hills of a high desert region. Then I was in the car with Mark and another friend and we were looking for the school, for me to give the talk, and I realized that I hadn't brought any of the sample textiles with me. When our friend pulled up to the campus, I also realized he had brought us to the wrong campus. I went inside to try to call the department--I didn't have any contact names or information--and no one answered the phone. No one seemed to know where the second campus was either. We went down the road, which was sort of like the yellow brick road, and a hiking couple told us we were going in the wrong direction and sent us back to a highway. When we arrived at the school, I went in first, loosing Mark and our friend, which nagged at me for the rest of the dream, and someone tried to call the department, with no luck. But then a student from the area walked by, and took me upstairs. I was going to see if I had time to go home and get the samples, when we walked into a huge room full of students, sitting waiting for me. The instructor introduced himself and I told him I had nothing with me, no samples, no images, but I thought I could talk to them anyway and keep their attention. Maybe this doesn't sound like a nightmare to you, but I do alot of preparation before talks and workshops, and I was totally upset and sweating. Then suddenly I realized they had a digital projector and I remembered that my blog had a link to my slideshow, and I could show that--and that is when I woke up.

My first degree is in psychology, maybe I thought if I studied it I would find out why I never dreamed (yes, I know about waking yourself up in the middle of the night, with a little pad of paper next to you and immediately writing down the dreams, and then one starts to remember)--so when I have a dream that I remember it is an occassion, and I do dwell on it. I see there are overtones of the talk I did last Saturday at BigTown Gallery--where Holly Walker and I each spoke about our work practices and the work in the gallery to a wonderfully receptive audience. Instead of the usual dark room and slides, I had the wonderful light pouring in the windows and clear views of the people I was talking to, and they could see me! The talk went well, Holly was terrific, and though I was nervous to begin with, it was a wonderful experience. Much like my dream.

The other part, probably the cause of the nightmare, is that I have been trying to create a website for myself (and once I did that I was going to do one for Mark). I have been reading a book on Dreamweaver CS3, and watching tutorials on the computer, and reading code everytime I open a webpage. Did you know you can go to View>View Source and you will see the code for this page, or any page that you are on? It is a new language for me--and I guess I would say I have gone from intro level to basic level. In other words, I do understand some of what I am seeing, but not enough for a conversation--certainly not enough to make a webpage with lots of images that transition smoothly from one to another. In my head I understand, but in front of the blank computer page, I am stymied. Two nights ago I was up until 5:30am trying to understand this stuff. Yesterday I was a statue frozen in front of my screen until late afternoon, when Holly called with her own computer melt-down and I went out to act the hero. How wonderful to finally have a part of the day where I knew something, instead of being in this limbo place of understanding/not understanding.

I have decided that I am going to put the website on hold for now. In a few weeks I am going to a workshop where they will talk about web design, and hopefully they will be able to offer advice that will get me going. I know if I wanted to devote the next month or two to just learning this on my own, I could do it. I need more books, and I probably could use some other software, but then if I am doing that, what about my weaving? So the nightmare has helped me have a sense of priorities. I am going back to the loom, and begin this series of work that I have been planning. And if I need someone to see my work online, well, here it is, right in this blog--just go to the right hand column and click on the image in the slideshow and it brings you to the slideshow in a bigger format.

Thank goodness for nightmares. Oh, the code below is actual code from the last blog I posted. And now I am thinking that I am going to weave code. I especially like it when it has color, like the one above.

Code from my last Blog post

Gratitude, Health Insurance

Horse & Cart Thank You Weaving

detail of Horse & Cart Thank You weaving

While the debate rages about health care in this country, I thought I would weigh in with my own experiences and a statement about gratitude. At various times in my life, often to the horror of some people, I have lived without health insurance. In general I have good health, but I have had my share of exotic illnesses, including malaria. Without insurance, my doctor in Brooklyn could not admit me to her hospital--even though she was sure I was having an ectopic pregnancy. She sent me to Bellevue, a public hospital that would accept patients without insurance. It took almost 20 hours to be admitted, but once admitted, they immediately performed surgery and saved my life. For that I am grateful. More recently we have had insurance, usually through private plans, whose costs vary greatly from state to state. The same provider, offering the same services, charged one-quarter the amount in New Mexico than it charges in Vermont. I should have asked for the name of the person working for them who told me, when I inquired about the Vermont plan, "You don't want it. It is too expensive." So we didn't have insurance until we heard about Catamount Health, Vermont's plan to provide health insurance at reasonable cost. A wonderful woman at Guifford Hospital helped us with the paperwork, and once again, insured, we feel more secure, even though we hope we will rarely need to use it. For this I am grateful. I wove the weaving above as a statement of my gratitude--thank you in several languages.

I just can't understand why this country is so unwilling to help its own people, especially since this unwillingness generates higher costs than if everyone was covered. I do hope a national health care plan passes and everyone can see a physician when they need help. Or buy the medicines they need. If my malaria had showed up in China or India, I could have gone to the local pharmacy and gotten a few pills and been fine. But it didn't manifest until I was back in the USA. Not only did I have to suggest to the doctor that it might be malaria, but it cost over a $1000 for one night in the hospital so they could observe me taking those pills. I paid that bill off over years, each month remembering the doctor who told me malaria was his specialty but he had never seen it in life before. Without insurance I had to stop taking a monthly bone density pill, because buying it as an individual would have cost more than $100 a month. What will it take for the people who are fortunate to have compassion for the less fortunate?

I have never understood the inequity of pay in different professions. Most of my friends are artists--educated, serious, professional, and hard working. Obviously I believe in the importance of creative work, that the benefits of such a life out-weigh the fact that such activity is often not paid work. In New Mexico I was able to trade weaving for dental work. That was a rare, and wonderful experience. I know that what I do is valuable, yet that value just doesn't seem to translate to money. Should I stop doing it then? I know that many artists ask themselves this question--and many do stop. I am going to write more about this, but for now I just want to say that I am grateful to live in a state that helps its population have quality health care for all.

Who Teaches Who?

I had a wonderful two days working with Betty Vera, who is an accomplished artist with a clear sense of her own direction and needs. Working one on one is such a give and take that I often wonder, who is teaching who? I like to think we are explorers together rather than mentor/mentee teacher/student or any other dichotomy. I knew both Betty and I had done extensive work using painted warps, but in very different ways, and it was fun to learn how often our lives unknowingly dovetailed. I am sure we have been in rooms together before but just didn't know each other. 

Betty Vera discussing her lampas study

detail of Betty Vera's lampas study

The first day we spent going over the process of designing for Beljen Mills, which is also discussed in The Woven Pixel in detail. Betty is such a good colorist and it is going to be interesting to watch how she works with their warp tapestry setup which allows for pixelated abstraction in the imagery and color principles derived from pointillism. Since she has already done some work with this mill and others, she had a good grasp of what she needed clarifying. We made a set of weave structures using the black warp as the main color, running through all the possibilities of using it with other colors as binders, as well as the variations using dark and light wefts. In her own studio, she is now going to work on her 16-shaft loom to do some structure tests that she can incorporate into jacquard cloth.

Betty Vera's Double Plain Weave studies

The second day we worked with Photoshop and the TC-1 using The Woven Pixel processes. We took one of her images, a very diffused soft image with extreme pixelation of many colors and worked it into two variations that were woven using the ten structures I discussed recently for Double Plain Weave. I wasn't sure how the single pixels would work but was thrilled as her weaving progressed at the loom. I loved the cloth, and realized that she was creating an effect with solid black and white threads that was quite similar to one I had created by braiding black yarn and discharging the color. You can see details of Betty's cloth below, and one of my braided discharged pieces below that. 

detail of Betty Vera's double plain weave study

detail of lampas weaving by Bhakti Ziek showing braided and discharged warps

After weaving the double plain weave, we returned to the computer and designed 10 lampas structures using three wefts (one ground and two pattern wefts). Because the TC-1 loom is set-up with an end and end, black and white, warp, I realized we could make 1:1 (1 ground warp to 1 binder warp) structures that sometimes brought the white warp up as either a warp-faced or weft-faced satin ground, and two more structures that could bring the black warp up as warp-faced or weft-faced satin ground. Then using the two pattern wefts, we made a 1/3 twill that showed both wefts together, one structure using the white warp as binder, another using the black warp as binder. Then four more structures, one that showed the first pattern weft alone in a 1/3 twill with the white warp, another with the black warp; another structure showing the second pattern weft alone in a 1/3 twill, first with the white warp then with the black warp. The beating of the wefts is such that three picks end up sitting on top of each other, so on the face of the cloth you will see pattern weft one alone, pattern weft two alone, the two pattern wefts together, the ground weft alone, or the ground warp--five variations showing black warp as ground, white warp as binder and five variations showing white warp as ground and black warp as binder. A detail of Betty's study is at the top of this post. Click on the detail to see the image enlarged (you can click on any image to see it enlarged--did you know that?).

So, although I get the credit for being the teacher these last few days, Betty's inquiries led me to new places and new insights. I am so enthusiastic about the cloth coming off my TC-1 these days that I honestly don't feel there are enough hours in the day to get my work done. Though I often suffer from lack of direction, this is a fertile time where there are too many ideas springing up. They come directly from the work. They come so fast that I forget to write them down in my notebook--to remind me what to do when the dry spell hits again. I guess when it does, that will probably be a time when the work has gotten interrupted by other life necessities. So if it happens, and I forget that I just need to get started working again, maybe one of you will be kind enough to write me a note reminding me that the work will generate its own ideas and paths--just get started.

By the way, that cake I mentioned last time, it did turn out to be perfectly delicious. I usually make it as a strawberry shortcake, but this time I used blueberries in the center and blackberries on top. It is all gone now and I am suffering from deprivation.

Delicious Genoise Cake

Paper Weft

I have been weaving place mats--something I never use myself, but they seem like good ground for the collaboration project. Liz and Holly and I talked, and the idea that each place setting could be unique fits my way of working. Instead of weaving sets of one design, each place mat can be different. So that is how I am proceeding so far. For years I have had several types of paper yarn on my shelves, and I decided to try them. The first weft, which I wound on a bobbin that fit in a boat shuttle, was too stiff and unpleasant to work with. I didn't even complete a full mat. Then I decided to try the yarn shown above on flat shuttles. I haven't used this type of shuttle in years and when I was setting everything up in my studio, I admit to thinking, now why do I still have these? So now I know. They don't work with the fluidity of a boat shuttle, but they definitely fit this yarn better than a bobbin. The moral of course is "never throw anything out," right?

At first I was weaving with one shuttle, throwing it again and again for repetitive shots of structure, but then I decided to try one shuttle as a single weft, and the other shuttle with four strands. It made weaving much faster and easier, and I couldn't really see a difference in terms of the yarn lying next to itself. Maybe with a different type of yarn the single shots would have lain side by side, smoothly, but this yarn was not so cooperative.

After weaving with the paper yarn, I looked more carefully at the Mexican bag I have recently been using as a purse. It is woven from plastic yarn. I have new appreciation for the patience of the weaver, since this yarn must have been difficult to use. It probably wasn't woven on a hand loom, but then, maybe it was. I think I got this in Oaxaca in the mid-90's. Thinking about different material for art work, made me remember someone I met in Mexico forty years ago. I have no idea who he was, but I remember him boasting about his work which was woven from film strips. It sounded interesting but I have never been impressed with novelty material as the sole interest of a piece. He must have shown me a picture or an actual piece, because I then became totally dismissive of him and his work. So what if it was an unusual material--it was boring, ugly, uninspiring. On the other hand, I have also been thinking of Dorothy Liebes, who was an inspired and inventive designer. When I taught at Philadelphia College of Textiles & Science, there was a study collection of her work that students could see and handle. Though they often seemed dated to me (a study that was totally innovative in the 1950s had become the curtain treatment of a fast food restaurant by the 1990s), they also offered possibilities for experimentation and creativity to both me and the students.

Some of my concerns with the place mats are important to functional work--how will I finish them? How can they be cleaned? Are they large enough for the plates that will sit on them? Maybe when I do enough of them, I will want to choose one as a production item, but for now, the intrigue remains in the exploration.

Dressing the Loom

I wound a warp yesterday of heavy white cording. I think it is cotton but so many of my yarns have lost identification tags during my various moves that I am not sure. (Yes, I could do some tests to find out, couldn't I? That is, if I was someone other than myself.) This yarn has been haunting me to be woven as a basket weave.

I have worked with many students over the years, of varying levels of expertise. It is always interesting to work with people who already know how to weave, because I inevitably learn a new way to do something. I like learning different methods, though I don't always change what I do, even if the new method seems smarter. My advice to students is what I follow myself: try the new way and then decide what you want to do. Sometimes a new method is awkward, but worth pursuing because it does seem better; other times I just leave it alone after trying it. That being said, I do think my way of hanging my lease sticks for threading is very smart. You can see in the image above, that I hang my lease sticks from the castle at the back of the loom--tying the string through the back lease stick. This makes the back lease stick higher than the front one.

You can see from the picture above, taken from the front of the loom, that I can see the sequence of my threads when the lease sticks are hung this way, and choose the next one for threading easily. I always was frustrated by the method I originally learned, which had the lease sticks horizontal in the same plane. The method I use now definitely makes the process of threading move smoothly and correctly.

I thread from back to front now--though I originally learned to thread front to back. My first weaving lessons were in New York City at the Crafts Students League. The teacher was Claire Freedman. I didn't have anything specific I wanted to make, I just wanted to learn everything possible so when I moved to a commune I would be able to weave whatever was needed. She took me through so many processes (tapestry, pile knotting, leno, double weave, twills) and I still have those studies. When I look at them, it seems that I knew what I was doing, but I know I didn't understand them at all--just followed directions. It took years until I really grasped what was going on. I am still learning, and often going back to things I did in the past to do again, and understand better this time around.

So I began weaving. You can see plain weave, then rib, plain, then basket, and then plain. This will be a sample I put in my notebook, along with all the data about this cloth. I have lots of notebooks which I fill up religiously, and then never go back to and look at again.