Report on Road Trip--Part I

Myra Serrins in her studio

Natural Dyes 1 by Bhakti Ziek on left

Woven Dyed Piece by Myra Serrins on right

My road trip to Maryland/Washington DC area was so chock full of experiences that I will have to report on it in several posts. I stopped the first night with my friends Myra and Marty--just in time to go to Myra's yoga class. She is the teacher--and a really good one too. I didn't like yoga when I did it in the 70s, and I didn't like it recently when I tried a class here, but I actually enjoyed working with Myra. It definitely felt like the perfect antidote to hours of sitting in the car. I was pleased to see a couple of my weavings hanging in their house. Natural Dyes 1 is shown above, left. I wove it in New Mexico, and the warp was ikat dyed using natural dyes. Myra is a serious committed artist (my favorite type) who works in several medium, including weaving. I love the depth of black in her weaving on the right. If you click on the image it will open in a separate window and you can see the details of it better.

Blossoms Two Ways

I left piles of snow and no traffic, but the snow was gone by lower Vermont. By the time I reached Webs in north central Massachusetts my hands hurt from gripping the steering wheel with tension. I tried to remember Mark's suggestion--just stay in your lane and you will be okay. You would never know from my fear of traffic that I am a New Yorker. The first day was the worst--then I calmed down. (And I did manage to make it home safely, so I guess everything in terms of driving went well.) The trees had fresh small leaves in Massachusetts, there was green grass in upper New Jersey, and flowering trees in Maryland. I had to go and meet Spring, since she hasn't shown up here yet.

Since I mentioned Webs, I might as well tell you that I was so disappointed with the yarn that is available for weavers these days. I needed some black novelty yarn, a boucle or something like that, and they had one shelf with some variegated yarn on cones, and nothing else. I ended up buying a few balls of expensive knitting yarn to try it, but....I really miss Irene and Cooper Kenworthy in Providence.

Tied-Weave Study Group on left

Chris Spangler, Lanna Ray and Caroline Harlow on the right

Chris Spangler and her husband were my next hosts. A group of fantastic weavers were meeting at her house on Friday for their Tied-Weave Study Group. I don't think that is the actual name, but this year they are studying Tied-Weaves. Bonnie Inouye (second from left on sofa) was the moderator. I can name all of the people (Joyce Keister, Bonnie Inouye, Mary Pflueger, and Janet Stollnitz are on the sofa, left to right; Lanna Ray, Fern Grapin, Anna Byrd Mays, Chris Spangler, Caroline Harlow, and Larry Novak are standing, left to right) and I am sure if you are a weaver you know many of them too. If you click HERE you will go to the Potomac Fiber Arts Gallery Members' Page, and you can see work by Joyce, Janet and Larry and many of the other people who took my workshops this week.

Everyone brought food (you know how I love pot lucks) and I was entranced by Lanna's asparagus tart. It was a Martha Stewart recipe so of course it was beautiful. She shared the recipe and I am going to make it tomorrow for Mark's birthday.

Chris Spanger at her TC-1

Weaving by Chris Spangler with detail at the bottom

Chris has a TC-1 loom like mine, except she has six modules so she can weave at 45 epi at full loom width (28"). When she upgraded from four to six modules, she also purchased the new vacuum pump which has the capacity of running eight modules. She has both the vacuum and the air compressor in her garage, so weaving is much quieter than my set up. When I arrived, we photographed her recent weaving (shown above on the right, with a detail at the bottom) so I had the image on my camera to share with you. It is really beautiful. I don't have the exact measurements but I think it is about 7 feet high. The detail shows you how she pixelated the image so close up it is very abstract but from a distance it focuses into a landscape. She wove double weave with four wefts and has enormous color variation and nuance in the work. Chris has a new blog, and you can go to it by clicking HERE.

I have been very lucky in my ownership of a TC-1 loom, and now I am even luckier, because Chris had her former vacuum pump in the hallway and wanted to get rid of it. She offered it outright, but I felt an exchange was necessary--so she now owns one of my small weavings and I now own two vacuum pumps. That means I am one giant step closer to being able to upgrade my loom to more modules. If you want to learn more about the history of the TC-1, click HERE to go to a recent entry on the TC-2 Blog.

So I had a very auspicious beginning of my trip and when I went to give my lecture and teach the first workshop the next day for The Potomac Fiber Arts Guild, I already knew the names of 8 participants.

Stripes

Kitchen Stripes

Bowl in Upper left and Platter in Lower Right by Susie Rubenstein

I will do anything to procrastinate workshop preparation--hence this new blog post. Actually, I have been very busy preparing. I have this wonderful lecture on stripes that I used to do with slides and a slide projector--but my projector is long gone to the dump and my slides are buried somewhere in a closet--so I decided to create a new lecture with digital images of stripes. The most fun was walking around my house taking images. With stripes in mind, I found all sorts of examples that I wouldn't normally associate with that word. I love the bowls and platters that I own that were made by Susie Rubenstein. She runs the ceramics program at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, California, and has some current work in an exhibition there that runs through April 14th.

Kilim Stripes

Obviously my lecture is full of images of stripes in traditional textiles. I had such an abundance to choose from in my collection that it became frustrating. Too much had to be left out. But then, I have to leave something for the participants to discover on their own. The image above came from the book Kilims: Masterpieces from Turkey by Yanni Petsopoulos with commentary by Belkis Balpinar (NY: Rizzoli, 1991).

Loom Parts Stripes

It was fun to go up to my studio and find stripes on my looms. They are an integral part of the process of weaving. Below you can see the most current work, in progress, on my TC-1 loom. Vibeke Vestby has started a blog about the ongoing development of the TC-2. It is interesting, technical, and exciting. As one would expect from Vibeke and Digital Weaving Norway, it is very innovative and will take the potential of jacquard weaving to another level.

On Loom Now Stripes

Work in progress by Bhakti Ziek

And of course I have to show you my latest baked goods--strawberry shortcake with bananas and apricot preserve filling. Photographed on stripes of course.

Stawberry Shortcake on Tablecloth Stripes

Who are the lucky people who are going to hear my talk? Members of the Potomac Fiber Arts Guild in Maryland. I am giving a talk on my work to the guild on Saturday, April 9th. It starts at 10am and I believe it is open to the public. Then that afternoon I give a min-workshop on Photoshop for Fibers and then will do a two day workshop on design and creativity, with a focus on fibers. That is where the stripe lecture comes in.

Food

Mexican Wedding Cookies

photo by Holly Jennings

A mutual friend recently introduced Holly Jennings to me. We both went to Cranbrook Academy of Art for graduate school, different years, different majors (fiber for me, photography for her), but two years in that environment is sort of like a secret handshake. It seems almost improbable that we would both be in Randolph, Vermont and have gone to Cranbrook, but other grads keep popping up and right now I think I know 9 people in this close vicinity who have gone there. The alumni association said there are actually about 60 grads in this area, meaning Vermont and New Hampshire and lower Quebec. I thought about hosting a party (they won't give out names but they would send emails to everyone for me) but then thought better of it. I still might invite the nine I know to a pot luck, if spring ever arrives and I feel more social.

Holly and I also share a passion for food, though I do believe she is more focused than I am. She has put together a wonderful blog, The Dowdy Corners Cookbook Club, which I try to read every few days. It actually is a group of people that read cookbooks, make food from the books, and gather for a meal based on the current selection. I almost joined, but since I have a bad track record for joining and quiting, I decided to save myself the hassle and just not join. Instead I am lurking. The current selection is Diana Kennedy's The Art of Mexican Cooking. I missed out on purchasing the book when the club members' got theirs, but thought I picked up a copy when I went to Burlington. Wrong. I got The Essential Cuisines of Mexico, which is a compilation of three older books she has written. Holly had a stack of different books by Kennedy at her house the other day, and surprisingly they really do have different recipes in them. I have made the cheese chile rellenos from my cookbook twice now--and they are incredibly good. Since I lived in Guatemala and Mexico for five years in the early '70s, I never had a cookbook before, thinking I knew how to make beans and rice and rellenos. But following her recipe has convinced me that there is much to learn, and it is worth the effort to follow her instructions.

Holly made me a lunch using a delicious shrimp recipe from her book, and I brought Mexican Wedding Cookies for dessert. I actually didn't use the recipe which is in The Essential Cuisines book because it called for lard. Instead, I went to my trusty Martha Stewart's Handbook of Baking and followed her recipe. That book never fails--even though my oven has been misbehaving--and only the broiler coil got hot. For about two weeks now I have been baking by heating the oven to where I need it to go using broil, then turning it off, putting in the cake/cookies/whatever, and letting them cook--taking them out and reheating with broil sometimes, and returning them to the oven. Not a great way to cook, but it worked with the cookies shown above.

Lucky for me my neighbor is a genius and this morning he has fixed my oven. And if it doesn't last, he has already procured a backup plan. So I feel secure. Without my oven I feel very insecure.

By the way, Dowdy Corners Cookbook Club is open to anyone to join. There is a great post on queso fresco that includes a recipe that was posted on March 24th. I think when groups start gathering in different areas of the country, and report their findings on the blog, it is going to gain a big following. I might even join. And you?

Crackle Weave

Crackle yardage by Bhakti Ziek

I finished weaving the crackle studies yesterday. I used up yarn on bobbins, almost randomly taking them from my baskets, though in the end, the cloth looked very harmonious. Not sure if I will cut it apart for dish towels, let my husband have it to paint on, or just fold it up and put it away. There is enough yardage for all three possibilities.

The pictures show the cloth just off the loom, but now it has been washed and is drying. If it looks significantly different, I will post a picture. I was trying to get a handle on differences in the cloth by using different weights yarn for both the ground tabby and pattern, sometimes using a very fine tabby weft and sometimes just slightly thinner than the pattern weft. Obviously there are differences, but it all looks okay to me. There is something oddly pleasing about just making traditional cloth. The editors of the book must have liked crackle too, since they used it as the background weave on the cover.

I am going to try and figure out how to use crackle for a jacquard weaving. Am feeling almost ready to start again.

Crackle Studies based on this book

Studies 493 to 495 (top to bottom)

Crackle Studies 496 to 498

Crackle Studies 499 to 501 plus one by Bhakti Ziek

End--Begin

Sandra Brownlee visiting from Halifax, Nova Scotia in front of Continuum by Bhakti Ziek

Sandra Brownlee, weaver extraordinaire and one of the most creative people I know, came down from Halifax, Nova Scotia to help celebrate the last day of my show. It is always stimulating to talk to Sandra, and she walked through the exhibition giving me applause and encouragement. Since endings are beginnings, this was a perfect time for her visit. (You can purchase Sandra's book, Departures and Returns, directly from her. Just click on her name above and go to the contact page for information.)

The next day I lingered taking one last look at my work (see image below) before packing them up. Working towards a specific space was very helpful for me, giving me a parameter in terms of scale that I don't usually have. Knowing the distance between the windows for example, helped me determine the group of small rectangles. I could have gone with long vertical pieces, but didn't. I am thinking that is my next direction. So out of one project, which definitely came to a conclusion, is a spark that will ignite the coming work. Endings can be hard, but when I remember that an ending is also a beginning, and that life is a continuum, then I find a good perspective.

Last look before work comes down

I am not sure if I heard this directly from Ed Rossbach at a lecture or if I read it in a catalog--but I remember the story. Although Rossbach's work was much sought after by the time of the telling, he was referring to earlier in his career when he would send work off to shows and it would all come back after the show, and he would put it in his closet. He said one day he had a realization that would save him on expense and hassles. He realized he didn't have to send the work off, he could just make it, and then put it directly in the closet!

Definitely a man after my own heart. It took me almost a week to finish the task of getting the new work into my closet. After packing it in the gallery, I had to bring it home and repack with acid-free paper, then carry them to the third floor, remove everything from the closet so I could reorganize and repack the closet, making a chart of where things were stored as I went along. By the end I stopped writing on the chart, but I think I can find everything if necessary.

Closet for storing my work

Winter seems really long by this time of year, especially for someone like me who has never been a fan of the cold. I find refuge in the kitchen, and have had some real successes recently. I fell in love with these cooking pans at King Arthur Bakery. Online they call it a hamburger bun pan, in the store they called it an english muffin pan, but I immediately thought, little cakes. I tried to stack three layers--you can see one in the image below--but the layers were too thick for that and the rest became small two layer cakes. Next time I might try very thin layers and see how many I can stack together. And the chicken pot pies, made in individual oven proof bowls, were spectacular. I was remembering the chicken pot pies from the Horn and Hardart Automat in New York City (you would put in change and the little door in front of the item would open and you would take it out--total delight for a child and probably for the adults too.) I tried to find a recipe online and was surprised that I couldn't find one, though there is a book out that might have it. I will have to check, but the link for the book does show the bank of small food windows, if you want to see.

Recent baking triumphs

Out and About

Tuvan Throat Singers Performing at Chandler

Five weeks after the opening of my show at Chandler (one week left to see it), I find I am checking off some things on my to-do list (fun things like doing my part of the taxes), and getting out in the world again (as much as icy roads permit). So last week Mark and I joined an almost full house to hear The Tuvan Throat Singers perform at Chandler. Sitting up in the balcony, we had front row seats of the stage, and squirming masses of school children seated below. I had never heard of Tuva, but their singing relates to sounds I have heard from Tibetan monks in Nepal and India. They make a sound that resonates through the space and literally shakes you to the core.

Addison Gallery, top left

American History Museum, rest of images

Last Thursday we actually took a road trip, to the Andover/Lowell area of Massachusetts. The Addison Gallery of the Phillips Academy is showing Sheila Hicks: 50 Years, on view through February 27th. And the American Textile History Museum is showing the American Tapestry Biennial 8, which is up through May 1. The last time Mark and I visited that museum it was located in Andover, so that is many years ago. It has gone through changes, but still has some wonderful examples of 19th century textile history on display. The sample book and indigo chunks, and the way the carding machine was painted and distressed were my favorites.

Hicks is one of the grandmothers of the fiber art movement (Zeisler, Tawney and Hicks) and I have known their works since the late '60s. I wouldn't say I am directly in any of their lineages, but anyone doing textile-related work today owes them a debt. Though Hicks' installations in the show seem a bit tired, I kept thinking that young installation artists today, if they knew her work, would be so excited by it. She really was exploring material studies before anyone was using that term. Taking the simplest element, the thread, she makes massive work dealing with compression and release, the individual and community, ground to heaven. The bulk of the exhibition are small studies which she has done since the late fifties. An image of her thesis show at Yale, showing paintings and woven work really exemplifies her spirit of adventure; her understanding that an artist has no boundaries if the exploration is authentic.

Of course I loved the fact that I knew many of the artists showing in the Tapestry Biennial. I wasn't allowed to take pictures, but there is a good catalog that is available through the American Tapestry Alliance, and Janet Austin has pasted good images of the show on her facebook page. I always enjoy Jennifer Sargent's work, and her piece in the show was really wonderful. The open work and delicate yarns give her work a distinct presence. I have seen glossy reproductions of Michael Rohde's work that always are attractive--but they don't give a sense of the scale of his work, or the beautiful soft shading of colors that make up the whole, giving every part of the work its own nuance of character. I recently met Suzanne Pretty, who came with her husband to my talk at Chandler two weeks ago, and was pleased to see her prize winning tapestry at the entrance of the show. It is quite an honor to win first prize among so many excellent weavings.

Beth Couglan, from Chicago, visiting my exhibition

Another week, another visitor. I have just loved the stream of friends who have made it to Randolph to see my new series, Continuum. Beth is a world traveller and could have her own version of Nomad. She is also a wonderful weaver, so it was wonderful to see her enjoyment of my work. We also made an outing to King Arthur Flour to check out their new line of gluten-free products. It was a crowded morning and everyone was friendly, offering each other advice, clearly a group of foodies. I bought some white bowls to make individual pot pies--and we have been eating turkey pot pie all week.

Warp Painted with Earthues Natural Dye Extracts

I let my warp, painted with Earthues natural dye extracts, air dry for about two weeks and then steamed it. Here is the warp pre-steamed. I will show it to you again in a few weeks--after I let it air dry again and wash it. Eventually it will get on my TC-1 loom. As I check off some neglected projects I can see myself getting closer to the loom again, and the excitement is mounting.

Catching Up

Friends Visiting Exhibition

It has been wonderful to have friends from out of town visit and give me feedback on my continuum series. Since the opening (see previous post), Cyndy Barbone (top), Myra Serrins (second from top), Deborah Carlson (third from top), and Marcie Miller-Gross (shown here with Elizabeth Billings in bottom image) came to Randolph. I couldn't photograph Marcie in the show, since I was taking a workshop when she and Liz went to see it, but the phone call afterwards was sweet to my ears. All these friends are weavers (though Marcie's work has moved into another mysterious and intriguing place) and were able to give me good critical feedback to consider for future work. The show is still up until February 20th, and two more weekends will bring two more friends, so life is sweet. I did a talk on my work last weekend and Myra snapped an image of me in front of Chandler.

Bhakti standing in front of Chandler Center for the Arts with her name in lights

Canvas woven for Mark Goodwin

I haven't been focused enough to start new work on the TC-1, but have been weaving. I finished yardage of plain weave cotton/linen canvas for Mark to use in his work. The focus in our house has shifted from my preparation for an exhibition to his preparing for a one-person show at BigTown Gallery that will open on May 4th.

Sara Goodman's Dye Workshop

I also took a dye workshop with Sara Goodman in her studio in Lyme, NH. Just five of us, snow outside, warm inside, painting warps with Earthues Natural Dye Extracts. I used to think I invented painted warps (back in the late 1970s), which just shows how ignorant I was about the history of textiles, and I have written articles on the topic and taught many workshops on painted warps. I have even used the dye extracts on my own to paint a warp or two, but I didn't have a handle on the colors, the way I did with procion MX dyes. So it was wonderful for me to learn something new about something familiar, and to jump start a process that I hope to introduce into my next series of jacquard weavings. Sara also had an indigo pot going (notice how she uses all the proper gear for working with those chemicals), and at the end I was able to dip the end of my warp into both indigo and cochineal pots, ending the warp with red, purple and blue. I still have to steam it and wash it, but you can see my colorful warp wrapped in plastic above. Myra Serrins was in the class too (shown above left with Sara), and Carol and Amy (bottom left) and Toby (not shown) were also there. Sara will be teaching a dye workshop at New England Weavers Seminar 2011 (NEWS) so if you are interested, sign up. I will also be teaching there--photoshop for textile design.

Weaving crackle diamonds

Now I am trying to weave off the warp on one of my small macomber looms. I used a threading from the 8-shaft book by Carol Strickler, and am weaving off all the bits of color that are filling my bobbins. Maybe I will have some new dishtowels in the end. For sure I will have a box of empty bobbins so I can start fresh with my next work.

Lots of links in this post. I intended to try and post weekly in 2011, but have not been able to do so. I appreciate that people are still reading my blog and sending me personal emails with comments. Hope you are having as beautiful and snowy a winter as we are having in Vermont. I really loved the mental image of this country blanketed in snow from coast to coast, though I realize many places were not equipped to handle it the way they do here. Stay warm.