Holiday break

I did a few other experiments on Friday and took the rest of the warp off the loom. There was only about a yard of the cotton left, but much more of the silk and wool. I brought the whole woven strip home and put it in the front room where it is contantly in my sight so I think through what I want to do. There are 4 complete fiber sequences. I'm thinking one washed so as to preserve the shine of the silk and not felt the wool and, if cross dyeing is possible under conditions that will not affect these, then I will cross-dye this section.

One will be cross-dyed, perhaps using other dyes, and burnt-out in areas according to a screen. Or perhaps I will paint on the burn-out.

One will be treated so as to shrink the fibers to different extents, and dyed.

One will be treated so that the wool will shrink, and dyed.

I'm not sure what I will do with the experiments.

As for colors, I think the range from orange to purple by way of red. The reason? A one-sentence kid's letter to God that my sister sent me in an e-mail a few months ago. Something on the order of "I didn't think orange and purple went together until I saw last night's sunset. Good job," The shameful truth is I never thought orange and purple went together either, but now that I think about it....

Now, I've got four weeks approximately before the workshop/studios open again. Time to play with my own toys and follow up on some of the ideas I've recorded in this blog over the last three months. I reread it all last night after an e-mail from someone who read the blog.

Also time to make things for the shops. Got to make up for the part-time temp job money.

I atteneded a set of presentations yesterday of how the arts are being used with people with mental health challenges of one sort or another. It fits with my own experiences that, as I put on the "card" I printed out for the networking part of the gathering, "To make is to make merry". It gives a person who may have difficulties in employment a way to bring in some money that doesn't depend on anyone else's opinion or suspicions of your behavior. It give a person who may have had a period of time in which they found themselves always on the the receiving side of all kinds of kindnesses and services a way to spend some time on the other side, to say thanks to those who deserve thanks. And this may be obscure to some folks, but I think a lot of people wonder from time to time if there will be any trace of them left behind when they die. I remember distinctly when it occurred to me that, though the science papers I published would be not even footnotes in a fairly short time, there was a possibility that any of my creative makings might last far longer, that everything we know about any previous culture we know through the work of someone working in the arts, including writing for recent cultures, but as cultures were more an more distant in time, narrowing down to the more permanent arts. Making opens that possibility to anyone.

End of the semester

Tomorrow i must give up my loom. I've done what I intended to do and a little of the options. But for me, there is never enough time with a loom. I just absolutely love weaving. I've done at least 4 complete yarn sequences, so I will be able to do four experimental treatments. I've also done a small section of double cloth in which I've separated the textural weaves of the silk/wool and the cotton. I used silk as the weft for each.

Thee have been several significant surprises. I tried to choose silk, cotton, and wool yarns that were approximately the same thickness, but I must have been off some. The wool side of the warp has been significantly thicker than the silk side, so that as I wove and wound the fabric onto the breast beam, the fabric built up faster on the wool side. At first, this just created a bit of a gap on the lesser side, a noticeable horizontal shift on one side each time. But eventually it was impossble to tighten both sides of the cotton part of the warp. I added weights to the cotton side and eventually some sticks to take up the loose part at one side of the warp beam.

I have also discovered that the textured weaves I chose accumulate at different rates when an equal number of picks of each wave are used for the double cloth. I was able to do a bit of experimenting today, doing a whole repeat of the top cloth of the double weave and then a complete repeat of the bottom. This left gaps in each because the reed could not come all the way back to the last weaving, but I think the two layers would give an interesting effect by showing through these gaps. It's a very shor segment, though.

I wish there were time for more experiments. I've got about a yard worth of warp (cotton got used the fastest somehow) left, but only one day.

I also wish I could leave the work on the loom long enough to give a presentation to the class that will be weaving the first of the year. I haven't even met the weaving teacher, and I was really hoping to.

On to the next part of the project. I will probably bring the left over yarns home with me and work with them at home using my bulky knitting machine during the holidays. I also have ot finalize my plans for the pieces I have completed weaving and consider what I might do when the looms are available again. I might switch looms. I might do an idea I have for bought devore cloth based on the shadows cast by trees on the dirty windows of a bus I was riding. I may want to do some silk screens. And I definitely want to become acquainted with the machines for embroidery.

Dec 6

I'm happy. I have now completed either 3 1/2 or 4 1/2 panels. I'd have to unwind the warp to be sure. I'd like to finish this panel and one more and then do a doublecloth section with the silk/wool weave by itself on the top and the cotton weave by itself on the bottom (with the "invasions" by the alternative fibers included in each) so that it will be clear how I designed the piece with three different weaves in it.

Time is short, though. The looms will be used for classes at the first of the year and the workshops shut down at the end of this week. I think I will have to remove what is left of my warp from the loom on Friday. One does what one can do in the time available.

I will keep the thrums and the remains of the warp and do other things with them. I'm imagining a knitted panel in which I use each thrum in order, but I don't think that will be possible. I'm also thinking of a textury knit with one of the fibers used to accent the texture.

What makes the maximum possible is that I have enough tutoring students to be able to afford to quit the part-time job I have been doing. This allows me to think beyond the AA2A, to begin to join artist organisations and make the effort to apply for arts jobs. Maybe even to volunteer if the places I had investigated volunteering for haven't decided I'm a complete flake. Seemed like every time I set myself up to do a volunteer project, I had to give it up in favor of something, anything, that would provide income.

I just got my first post card announcement of an exhibit opening. This is significant because it is the first time I have been informed of a show before it happened. I'm beginning to make the lists of invitees to openings. This is what I need and want, to meet other artists, to make friends and acquaintances, to have a social life, to have others to bounce ideas off of and to be the reciever of those bounces. to be involved before things like the local fringe festival open.