Back on the Loom!

Do not leave yarn to run rampant on your loom, as it may jump into your nearby wine!

The next Technology Innovation Center showing has the theme of "Where the Heart is" and I got inspired.  I'm taking a look at my shift from being raised on the farm and being a home body to loving living in a city (or multiple cities) and being close to everything.  It has to start with the barn I grew up playing in.  It stands alone as the place to escape to when you wanted to get away and feel the warmth of old wood and dry alfalfa flakes.  I guess it represents the me that never wanted to go anywhere or do anything, I remember saying that I had no need to travel or want to go anywhere because it was expensive and if I never saw it, then I never knew what I was missing.  I guess I've grown since then and am so excited to go to Europe for the first time in March.  Yay!  Below is my cartoon sketch that I pin to my tapestry as I weave.  I love to make my work become it's own thing, so the colors are not necessarily going to be what it ends up looking like.  I do the same with beadwork.  It's the lines that are most important to me in my sketches.

The shifting colored spirals have been with me and within my artwork for as long as I can remember.  I think they're the one this that will always exist in my work.  They not only represent my love of natural forms, but of movement and lack of control.  Spirals and vines fly out of my drawing utensils while I'm not even looking, it's my constant daydream.

I have also been enjoying tapestry weaving because it is so easy to use up my stash. I love picking up yarns and remembering the trip I was on when I found a particular one.  This piece will have hints of Mendocino and Oakland California, living in Madison Wisconsin, the stockings I knitted this Christmas, and the warp on the loom is the leftover from the wraps I wove my bridesmaids in March of 2009.  And yes, this is my first weaving since!

I know it doesn't look like a lot right now, and we won't know exactly what it looks like until I pull it completely off the loom.  It's much quicker to work from the back of a tapestry than the front.  Plus it helps push me along to finish  because I really want to know what the end-product will look like.  Each of my pieces have a bit of a mind of their own.

Hopefully I'll be able to get this tapestry off loom and ready to hang by its due date for TIC!