Deborah Valoma, Longing, 2011, installation and performance integrating the sensual, spatial, and rhythmic dynamics of weaving and dance. Improvisational movement by Victor Alexander and Yismari Ramos Tellez. Music and sound by Arianna Brame and Petra Valoma. Filmed at the Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, OR, during an artist residency in conjunction with “Weaving, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” a retrospective of the work of weaver Laurie Herrick curated by Namita Wiggers.
Installation of Recollect 2 was a breeze thanks to Kat Perez the exhibition coordinator. I was happy to have the work installed near my primary inspirations for this project – Laurie Herrick’s Purple Polychrome and Tree of Life. I am feeling really good about this work and am glad to have another day with it before heading home. Its always hard to tell what to make of something you’ve just finished.
If you havent already done so, I would encourage you to check out the website for the exhibition Laurie Herrick: Weaving Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. From the website you can download weaving drafts, look at Herrick’s notes and sketches and participate in the exhibition by uploading an image of your own creation inspired by Herrick’s work on the museum’s Flickr page. Eventually a recording of my artist talk will also be available on the museum’s program page.
THANK YOU to everyone at MoCC for their generosity and assistance in making my time as artist in residence a memorable and inspiring one – Namita Gupta Wiggers, Kat Perez and Lauren Raburn especially!
Finally thank you Kristofer Kelly, my partner through it all for your patience, encouragement and love. (I’ll be home in forty-eight hours!)
Today was the day (after six final hours of weaving) to hem stitch then cut Recollect 2 from the loom. After some repairs and wet finishing it will be ready to hang tomorrow. Here are a couple images of the piece earlier today just after it was removed from the loom…
Weaving continues this week. Slowly. I am aiming to cut the cloth from the loom no later than Thursday evening leaving a little time for finishing (overnight basically) before hanging in the gallery Friday afternoon.
The finished work will be smaller than planned. I did not anticipate the time that would be required for a four-shuttle pattern, but am very pleased with the resulting cloth. The subtle complexity of colour blending possible using the polychrome technique is truly captivating.
I have to work hard while weaving not to pause and stare at the slowly shifting blocks of silk and hemp almost floating off the loom. I think that this structure holds a great deal of possibility for future work and will be revisiting it on my loom at home. As I said in my artist talk Saturday, I have learned a great deal from my encounter with Laurie Herrick who continues to be a great teacher.
I began weaving today with a tie up composed of three interleaved sequences of random integers. The plan is to change the tie-up each time I run out of treadling variations (approximately once a day). The blocks in the resulting pattern are a little subtler than in the simulations I created before traveling to Portland, but were fairly close to what I had anticipated.
What I hadn’t guessed is that the fine silk thread I am using for a tabby weft between pattern shots would assert itself so much, casting a glowing, pinkish haze across the surface of the cloth. In the above image you can also see the warp ikat predominant in a few blocks. Weaving was slow this afternoon and evening as I was still getting used to the treadling sequence – basically six variations on three pattern treadles, with one used for each colour.
Am really looking forward to a full day of weaving tomorrow and discovering how the pattern blocks will tumble across the cloth…
I arrived at the museum in the morning ready to spend the day getting set up for two whole weeks of weaving. This was my first chance to meet the exhibit’s curator Namita Gupta Wiggers in person and discuss the arrangement of the working space with her and the exhibit coordinator Kat Perez. Both made me feel very welcome and I am starting to realize the gift that the next two weeks really represents – time to weave.
The loom is placed near the entrance of the museum which will give visitors the opportunity to observe my project as it progresses. I am actually kind of intrigued with the idea of working in a public space and what kinds of encounters I will have. Although I am warming to the idea of weaving in public, it is more than a little intimidating to be weaving in such close proximity to Peter Collingwood’s “Macrogauze 119″ and a “Tree Bark” by Theo Moorman. (Both pieces once belonged to Laurie Herrick who brought both Collingwood and Moorman to Portland to teach workshops in the early 1970′s.) The gravity of such a situation may be lost on the non-weaver, but those who understand…well, maybe I am over-reacting, but man they are pretty amazing!
Much of the morning was taken up with counting heddles and preparing to beam the warp onto the back of the loom. In the afternoon I began beaming…and beaming…and then beaming some more. By the end of the day what was a jumbled pile of braided threads became a neatly wound warp ready for threading tomorrow. With some luck I may even be weaving late tomorrow afternoon.
This weekend I taught a Natural Dye Workshop at Pacific Northwest College of Art assisted by Lauren Raburn. It was a busy two days in which we managed to dye over thirty shades of colour on wool, silk and cotton. For me it was a great way to arrive in Portland (chest cold and losing my voice temporarily aside) and meet a group of individuals who are passionate about making things. In one small class there were weavers, artists and knitters who made me feel right at home. The range colours that we pulled from six dye pots was surprising. Although I have done this many times it is still a little magical coaxing colours like these from carrot tops, madder root and marigold flowers.
My residency at the Museum of Contemporary Craft starts tomorrow! I am hoping to post at least once each day as the residency progresses. I visited the museum Friday and had my first glimpse of the exhibition Laurie Herrick: Weaving Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. I will be weaving on the first floor of the museum within the exhibition surrounded by compelling hand woven work. Although the museum is actually closed tomorrow, I will be able to set up and begin threading. Having now seen the exhibit in person I am very keen to begin my tactile conversation with Laurie Herrick.
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