Birthday Cake

It's always a good morning when I return to bed with my cup of coffee and read. It's a sign of relaxation and leisure. This morning I noticed that the leaves on the trees almost obliterate the neighboring houses and I am left with a view of the hill behind town that reminds me of the view from the bedroom of our former home in New Mexico. I always felt that hill was a protection, and watching the morning sun hit it and turn it golden was always a thrill. Selling that place, with a house that we built ourselves with great effort and hope, was emotionally difficult, and I think I managed it by denying my attachment. So it seems that as I settle joyfully into Vermont, I can relax my internal walls, and allow memories of New Mexico to return. I remember when I studied psychology in the '60's how taken I was by the theory of cognitive dissonance. Upon making a decision, one is at first overcome by the sense that you made the wrong choice, and then that quickly is replaced by a firmer conviction that you indeed made the right choice. So now I feel safe enough to allow good memories of New Mexico to return without it threatening our decision to move to Vermont.

I wanted to post pictures of my weft-backed double weave for days, but I didn't want my friend Sara Tucker to see, because I wove her a birthday cake. Yesterday, after the opening of Into the Woods, we had a joint gemini party. You can see her and her sister Martha holding the weaving below, as well as strawberry shortcake. 

Sara Tucker (r) and her sister Martha holding Sara's birthday cake weaving

I actually gave Sara the weaving earlier in the day, and she put it on the back of a chair as a display for everyone to see at the party. It amazed me how it fit perfectly, and suddenly I really could conceive of a furniture collaboration with Mark--something he has been interested in for a long time. I don't know how long it will take for that to take shape, but probably now that I can visualize it, it has a chance to happen.

Sara's Birthday Cake weaving on display for party

I also wove a birthday cake for my Aunt Bess' party, which will take place August 30th. She is going to be 100! I don't think Bess is reading this blog, so she probably won't see the weaving until her party, but if she is, then she can look forward to seeing it in person. I am posting both the front and back of her weaving, so you can see how different they are. I wove both birthday cakes face down, so I saw the colorful floats develop, not the sharp definition of the front. Both these weavings made me very happy. Pleased by the complicated structure that made the imagery possible, pleased by the thought that I was giving them to specific people who make my life better, and pleased by the silliness of them, which seemed perfect as a birthday present. At the party, my other friends lined up to tell me when their birthdays are coming, so they too can get these cakes. 

Front of Aunt Bess' Birthday Cake weaving

Back of Aunt Bess' Birthday Cake weaving

And besides having a pot luck with good friends and the most delicious food, much of which came from recipes in Deborah Madison's book, I received a wonderful old collapsible wooden ruler from the Sacca/Billings and an intriguing collage from Laurie Sverdlove, who co-curated Into the Woods with Dian Parker. They are pictured with Tom Batey (who did the card) below. I took this picture before the opening, which is good, because the gallery was packed for the next few hours and all my pictures just show backs of people. The show was appreciated by all and the hard work these three people did was justly praised.   

Right to Left: Laurie Sverdlove, Dian Parker, and Tom Batey, standing at side of Laurie's painting just before opening of Into the Woods 

So what was I reading this morning? Flatbreads & Flavors by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. I haven't cooked from it yet, but I will. They are travellers and cooks and I relate to their writing. I go through phases where I stop reading and stop cooking, and life is a little duller for the lack of these activities. Getting ready for the opening and party got me in the kitchen, and eating Holly's foccacia with Liz's green cheese spread and Mark's lentil soup made me want to find more delicious recipes. Tonight I am going to try Alford and Duguid's Pizza with Rosemary and Garlic, and add the rest of the onion filling from Madison's book that didn't go into the empanadas. Ahh, good living! And just look at the poppies in our garden. 

June Beginnings

New toys--a mangle and a braid twister

It has been raining here and I keep reminding myself that in New Mexico we would have welcomed days of steady rain, but still I miss the sun. Mark and I drove to New Hampshire at the end of the week in the pouring rain to pick up an old mangle. This and the braid twister came to me via Edith House. She read that I wanted the braid twister on my blog and ordered one for me (maybe I should have a running wish list on the side bar). I was thrilled--especially since I had ordered one on ebay myself--my first and last attempt to use that site--and what I got was the head from a machine. Completely useless without the handle. I did check back and saw the ad definitely had the complete twister--and I could have lodged a complaint and sent it back. But that didn't make sense since the postage to/from the seller was more than the tool itself. Anyway, when Edith gave me this twister I felt like my story had a surprise happy ending. She keeps the list of looms and other tools for sale for the Vermont Weavers Guild and knew about this mangle for sale, so she put me in touch with the seller. I have been using tencel in my recent work almost exclusively, and seeing how Edith and Trudy Otis finished their tencel scarfs with the mangle enticed me to buy this.

Double Weave Comparison - front

Double Weave Comparison - back

I also finished the warp on my TC-1 and was able to cut off the cloth yesterday. I had forgotten I had woven a comparison weaving in double cloth--but there it was at the beginning of the roll. Because I designed the structures for light lifts, the back of the cloth is almost all warp-faced. Quite a contrast to the front. I wanted the back of my last weavings to show weft floats, so I created weft-backed double weave structures. Even saying that makes my head spin. The day I was making those structures I definitely thought I was having a complete mental melt-down. After awhile, it seemed like all structures were the same--and I still feel that sometimes when I look at my wall of studies--they all are about warp or weft floats--the differences are so minute. I wonder if I am being side-tracked by this level of detail. But then I think "weft-backed double cloth" and something comes alive in me. You can see a detail below of the back of one of the pieces I wove. On the front it has areas of warp-faced white and warp-faced black, and then areas of single wefts working with either the white or the black warps (though I don't think the warps are showing much since the weft floats are doing a good job of hiding them). On one of the weavings I did put an area of the back on the front. I will post images as soon as I finish them. I wove them face-down so the lifts would be lighter than if woven face-up. It is always a thrill to take something off the loom that you are hoping is weaving correctly but you can't see (well, I could have used a mirror) and find out it worked.

back of "weft-backed double weave"

I did weave a small sample of the weft-backed double weave that I can run through the mangle and see what happens. That will have to wait until I get back from Chicago in July. Meanwhile, here is the invitation to the exhibit, Into the Woods, curated by Dian Parker and Laurie Sverdlove, which opens at The Chandler Gallery in Randolph on June 6. The two of them have done so much work investigating artists in Vermont whose work would fit with the theme, compiling what will be an exciting show, and organizing everything to high standards. It is very generous of them to do this. Of course I am thrilled that both Mark and I will have work in the exhibit. The opening is from 4-6 p.m. That's my birthday--I think I will just pretend everyone is there to celebrate with me--celebrate the fact that I am alive and well and can think of things like "weft-backed double weave" which really is something to celebrate.

Virtual Open Studio

Ideal breakfast nook

I came downstairs on Saturday morning to discover this beautiful vase of lilacs on the table. Our neighbor, Laura Morris, an avid and professional gardener/florist, put them there. They made this corner of display the ideal breakfast nook. I was too busy to sit and enjoy it myself. 81 people signed the guest book this weekend, but I think a few slipped in and out without signing. There was work shown on three floors, and each floor had a "host." Holly Walker greeted people on the first floor, my husband, Mark Goodwin, was on the second floor, and I was on the third floor demonstrating the TC-1 loom. I created a slideshow of the weekend (a Virtual Open Studio) on my Picasa site and if you want to see it, click HERE.

Map of First Floor Work, minus the labels

I made maps of each floor of the house, and labelled the art work and listed information such as size, date, materials, and price. I think only a handful of people noticed them, and maybe people didn't realize the work was for sale. I know our friends who visited from Utica weren't sure, and so I tried to place the maps in more prominent places on Sunday, but they still seemed to be invisible. Maybe our work was so brilliant the visitors didn't notice anything else. I prefer thinking that than entertaining the thought that nobody liked the work. Personally, I thought everything looked great.

Connie, Patty, Jane and Andy (left to right), four of the 81 visitors during the Open Studio Weekend (Jane and Andy are weavers themselves)

For the weaving demonstration, I had my Macintosh computer where I do my Photoshop work set up next to the PC which runs my TC-1 loom. Using the processes described in The Woven Pixel (yes, I did have a copy of the book out for visitors to see), I had four files open to show my guests--the original digital image of an Ottomon tile which I took in Turkey a number of years ago; the design file which had the tile reduced to three colors and a layer of descriptive words on top (something like "this is a demo during Vermont Open Studios by BZ in her beautiful Randolph studio with visitors watching"); the layered weave file where I could click pattern on and off to show people how pattern is placed over color; and the final bmp file which is brought to the PC computer. You can see these four files in the slideshow. I usually wove about ten picks each time I showed people how the loom worked, but it added up to a significant amount of weaving. You can see in the image below how much was woven, start and stop all the way, this weekend.

Demonstration weaving at the end of the Open Studio Sunday evening

Saturday afternoon I finally had a break and ran downstairs to offer Holly lunch. We both got bowls of yogurt, fruit and granola and sat out front. We were stunned to discover it was almost 5pm, and the lull was because Open Studio stopped at 5. Both days were busy, though Sunday morning started slow, with rain, but then became a glorious day and we had a steady stream of visitors. It was very exciting to have so many people interested in weaving. I even had a few visitors weave on the macomber loom I had set up in case anyone wanted to try.

Demonstration weaving finished today

This morning was another beautiful day in Vermont, so we took our dog for a ride and went to the book and plant sale in Tunbridge. We didn't get anything, but it was fun to walk down the street which was packed with people greeting one another. It was like that in our house this weekend too--it seemed like all our visitors knew one another, and perhaps in a few years we will know everyone in Randolph too. When we got home I went upstairs and finished the weaving. No visitors watching today.

Open Studio Preparation

Florence Cross-Sections above desk

Our house is in chaos as we try to get ready for Open Studios this weekend. I have to put out signs at the end of our street tomorrow evening or early Saturday morning. The other artists involved with the White River Craft Center will put out signs near the highway exit and other places in town, and if I am lucky, some people will come see my work. It has been fun to take work out and put it up on the walls. Florence Cross-Sections is shown in the image above, and Empire I is seen in the image below.

Entry room with Empire I hanging 

Across the room from Empire I, I have hung Creed 2 and Creed 1. They both say "textiles are my religion" which about sums it up for me.

Creed 2 on left and Creed 1 on right

On the second floor Mark has cleared out most of his work to let me hang weavings. You can see Mirror I on the left wall, and NM Scrolls 1, 2, and 4 (left to right) below. The box is one of Mark's new pieces.

Second floor studio: Mirror I on left wall, NM Scrolls 1, 3, 4 on right wall, 

box by Mark Goodwin on floor

Recently I ended my relationship with all galleries and organizations that were representing my work. I am very appreciative of their support but I wanted the ability to offer lower prices for my work from my studio, and did not feel I could do that while I had outside representation. Though I never expect that work is going to sell, I am always pleased when it does. At the Open Studio, I will be able to offer significant price reductions, and I am curious to see if it increases sales or not. If anyone reading this blog is interested in purchasing work, please email me for the new prices.

On the third floor, my studio, I will be demonstrating the TC-1 loom both days. I intended to show you an image of the studio in chaos (just to prove I am not always neat, though it is my preference) but Mali stopped me at the top of the steps and insisted I take her picture. She was quite annoyed that Dylan, her brother, got on the blog before her. I doubt if any of the visitors this weekend will get to see her or her brother--they have their secret hiding places.

Mali guarding the entrance to my studio

Perennial Gardens

Standing Stone Perennial Farm in S. Royalton, Vermont

Lynne Hall, co-owner of Standing Stone Perennial Farm

I had another wonderful Vermont experience today. Our friend Holly Walker, who is such a wonderful potter, is also an incredible gardener. For months she has been telling us about a wonderful perennial farm nearby, and this morning she took Mark and I there. Standing Stone Perennial Farm was all that she had told us and more. We met co-owner Lynne Hall, pictured above, who went and got the paint buckets of actual paint used on her house so we could copy the numbers exactly. Mark has been spending hours each day at the Benjamin Moore site trying out colors that might work on our house, and Holly is doing the same, and we all responded to the colors Lynne has on her house. Then we walked the gardens and felt deep joy from the beauty of this place.

Holly and Mark at Standing Stone Perennial Farm, note color of house behind them

Holly came over the other day and walked our garden pointing out names of everything. She had already done this once, when leaves were just peeping out of the earth and everything looked identical to me. Now even I can see the differences. I had a paper where I had diagrammed the garden and now I adjusted labels, but made a mistake and wrote names from one area on a different page, and it was a mess. So I decided I would take my digital camera and photograph the garden instead. I do remember my mother, who loved gardening (and made me and my siblings do much of the weeding), starting in winter with catalogs and drawings and complex plans of color shifts and areas of constant bloom. The idea of doing the record keeping with digital images seemed so 21st century to me. Then Mark made a joke about me weaving the garden plan and it seemed so absolutely right that I am going to do it. I took tons of photos of the garden, panning from section to section, and then returning to do individual plants. Years ago I had purchased a Native American dye chart in New Mexico where they had swatches of woven cloth in the center and lines out to plant specimens on the sides. I figure my weaving will be some variation of that with overall plan and then identifying closeups. 

"My" Perennial Garden

Heuchera Micrantha (Palace Purple) in "my" garden

Yesterday I stopped to talk to our neighbor, Kelly Green, who was working in her perennial garden, and mentioned that I had taken digital images of the garden and was planning to print it out and label each plant. So Kelly sent me the following link to show me what she has done. It is brilliant. She uses Flickr though and I don't think Picasso has this cool ability to add notes when you hover over an image. I probably will just do mine in Photoshop. Then I can keep going and work on it as an image for weaving.

So walking through the gardens with Holly was a bit like walking in a foreign country, hearing language but not understanding a word. Proudly I could point to a few plants and mutter "Heuchera" or "Sedum--Autumn Joy" which showed I was paying attention the other day, and not all my brain cells have been fryed by playing too much solitaire on the computer. Because we plan to do exterior work on the house this summer, Mark got me to agree that we would only purchase something for the wooden barrel in our front yard (seems like all Vermont houses have these wooden barrels). So this morning was more about future additions to the garden. We did end up with a beautiful grass (Helictotrichon or Blue Oat Grass) that we can transplant to soil in the fall. Perhaps we have started a new tradition--each year we can get something for that barrel that will then get incorporated into the garden. Over time, with experience, maybe I can even call it my garden instead of "my" garden.

At my Open Studio next weekend Holly and Liz and I are going to premier our table setting collaboration. Please come and see it, and enjoy the walk around "my" perennial garden.

Vermont Weavers Guild Exhibition

The Guest House-6 by Bhakti Ziek, handwoven weft-backed jacquard

Today is the opening of the Vermont Weavers Guild Biennial Show at The Chandler Center for the Arts, here in Randolph. I was one of three jurors this year, plus I am a member of the Guild, though a very inactive one. I joined in September so I could meet fellow weavers and went to a few meetings, but then there was a winter break in the schedule and after that I never remembered when they meet. I continue to be impressed with how many people in this region are weavers. Therefore I was surprised at the jurying that so few people entered work. Still, the show is respectable and worth seeing if you are in this area. It will be open during the Vermont Open Studios next weekend. The Guild is housed at Kimball House, The White River Craft Center and members will be demonstrating weaving both there and at the Chandler. If you come to Randolph on either May 23 or 24, be sure and visit both White River Craft Center locations, as well as my studio. The information for specific locations is on the map in Orange County (click on the link above for Vermont Open Studios).

Nasca Blue by Bhakti Ziek, weft-backed jacquard

Most of the work in the Guild exhibit is small and functional. They invited the jurors to exhibit two pieces each. I chose to put in two weavings that would give the audience another sense of what it means to be a weaver. When I created my series of Flying Monkey Textiles, I also did a warp-tapestry of The Guest House, which incorporated Rumi's wonderful poem. I used Coleman Bark's translation and gave him a commission on every one of them that I sold. The Guest House-6 was created before I made the edition. Rumi was one of the original whirling dervishes, and I used an image of one of my husband's sculptures as the background, since the holes in the sculpture reminded me of the motion of dancing dervishes. Nasca Blue, the other weaving I put in the show, used sections of my writing from letters written to friends, arranged in a format that references both block weaving patterns as well as assembled quilt designs.

Comparison Charts

The Weaving Lesson: Warp-Backed

I have woven three weavings for my series, The Weaving Lesson, that are comparisons of the same starting image. Above is the warp-backed version, and below is the lampas comparison and a detail of it.

The Weaving Lesson: Lampas

detail of The Weaving Lesson: Lampas

The third one, a double cloth using 12-shaft satin structures, is finished, but still on the loom. I can only show a detail for now. I used two wefts, but changed their colors to delineate sections--the main weaving, an addendum, and then a second addendum.

detail of The Weaving Lesson: Double Weave

I can see the end of this warp. It was ten yards, which is long for me, but it wove quickly because I was interested in the work (plus I had some help from my two tutorial students). Thinking about involvement, engagement, and interest, I have decided that time is too valuable to squander on things that don't interest me. I could say it is aging that makes me this way, but actually I have always been following this philosophy. It didn't make sense to me in my 20's to spend my prime energy on a sensible career so I could be comfortable in my old age--travelling was much more enticing and in the end those years in Guatemala were crucial to my development as a weaver.

Now that I am old, it still seems crazy to spend my energy on something that seems like drudgery. I like to work, but I guess I made demands on that work--that it interest me. I also put a ten yard warp on one of my macombers last week, intending to do more place mats. The Vermont Open Studios is quickly approaching and I plan to have some place settings on my table that show the collaboration between Holly Walker, Elizabeth Billings and myself. However, I think now that my contribution will have to be selected from what I have already woven. And the ten yards on the macomber loom can be used by visitors to sit at a loom and experience what weaving is like.

Here is the totally inspiring view from the window at the top of the steps as you enter my studio.

View from my studio window