The Beginnings of a Commission for the First Baptist Church, Ann Arbor

Entrance the weaving will be hung closest to

The Agreement has been signed and I have cashed a check so I think I can publicly talk about a church commission that I am SO excited to be doing. I usually don't take on commissions, but, after a phone conversation and a deep-dive on the internet researching Stacey Simpson Duke's life as a Pastor, knitter and fellow fiber-addict I was quickly moved and inspired. (I could go on and on about her, the people I get to work with to discuss and celebrate her life, and how I'm moved to tears even though I have never met her, but I'm trying to keep my posts project-focused). There are so many reasons I took on this commission.

Proposed Wall, right side above the stairs

This commission actually had perfect timing. The last sampler piece that I took off of Delilah before I sold her I wasn't that pleased with and I'm not really driven to put together the cartoon that I have printed out. I did everything right, the yarn sett was correct, I liked the colors ok, but trying to use stash yarn is hard and it turned out just chunky and stiff. Through this I learned that even though I'm weaving for art-installation work (not wearables), the way the fabric feels and moves is really important to me. I weave with really thin rayon which allows the fabric to be airy. I love how it feels and moves with the slightest breeze. I ordered some small spools of rayon that I thought would work for this new piece and started winding and dyeing it. It dyes up beautifully and is thin, soft and light. It's going to be wonderful to weave with, so I ordered the large 4lb spool of it.

I also have been working on getting a feel for the design. I'm sticking to my usual layered words but we want it to be less static than my usual word-based designs.  Stacey had a lot of energy and brilliant curly hair so the feeling of movement and curling twisting motions comes to mind when people think about her and her personality. For this I decided it was officially time to learn a vector-based design system. Adobe Illustrator was always scary and unnecessary for me back in art school as I wasn't doing any graphic design and here I am, almost 20 years later, needing it. Thankfully, I now have Google and YouTube to help me figure out what I need for a free program and tutorials to go along with it. I downloaded Inkscape and found some videos to show me exactly what I needed to know. We won't discuss how Bryan pointed out that I should try a vector-based program years ago when he painfully watched how I was creating my cartoons with a very time-consuming process in Photoshop/Gimp. I'm needing to make words bend and twist and Inkscape allows for it. Yay for being open to change and learning new programs and tech!

Part of the design I've been carrying around in my bag to look over on occasion

Dyeing for me is meditative. The amount of filling, dipping, stirring and rinsing with water is slow and steady. I'm keeping track of my time but I cut out the wait-time that I have for pots to boil, yarn to soak and dry, etc. I do small-batch one-color-at-a-time dyeing these days and it works well for me. I also keep the kitchen extra-clean to keep dye and fabric separate from dishes and food. I miss having a dye lab but I found I don't need to large-batch dye since I dye project-by-project. I don't even wind extra long warp "just in case I want to do another piece and I'll already have the loom warped for it."  All of my work is fully their own entity these days from the dyeing to finish work. 

I grabbed everything I had dyed so far for our meeting at the beginning of the month to hold up to the wall that the weaving will be going on at the church. I was glad I brought everything I had dyed so far; one color combo was stunning (where I had originally thought it probably wouldn't work) and some of the gorgeous more muted tones that I had dyed looked drab and boring against the wall. We looked at it with no track lighting (the space doesn't have any lights pointed on it right now) and put held them skeins under the lights on another part of the wall to see how it looked. It's very much the color of the wall that's effecting the way the yarn colors play off of it. So I started dyeing to get really bright, saturated colors. 

I ordered more dyes to get a better purple (a base color option I also have in mind) and some other green and yellow options. I'm in love with how the chartreuse green turned out and having fun blending other colors although I'm trying not to go too overboard, they can get mucked up pretty quickly if I'm not careful.  Meanwhile I'm planning to sample a few different striping options to see how they look along with the "wavy" wording" which I hope I will have them ready for when we plan our next in-person meeting at the church to, again, put up on the wall.

I spent about 2 hours winding skeins into balls yesterday, these colors are so wonderful, I haven't done anything this bright in a really long time. I still have a few more skeins to wind and then I'll be able to wind the warp. As I said multiple times in my Instagram reels yesterday, I'm super excited to see how these stripe out in the weaving samples. 

Spinning swift during ball winding

Midwest Weavers Conference Awards & Updates

One of the things I always find interesting is that if I don't provide a photo of some of my work hanging how I intended it, it sometimes gets hung differently.  "She Can't See the Forest Through the Trees" is one that travels best if I group the middle panel of beaded strips together on its hanging rod.  I then spread it out for display.  When I went to see it hung, they were all still grouped in the middle. I didn't mind it too much but I did find myself fixing it on my second visit to the exhibits area. 

"Leaf Me Alone" had the leaf panel hung in the middle of the back woven piece, which I left. I liked having it shown a little differently. 

I was notified after I got home that I won 3 awards: 1st Place and People's Choice for Leaf Me Alone and 3rd place for Neon Gypsy Leaf Bracelet. I'm always very honored to be awarded, and thank you to the conference and attendees for the votes and awards. One of my favorite things about exhibiting is when other conference members meet me and put my name along with the work they saw and their face lights up, "oh! you're Jenny!?" Su wanted to "pick my brain" about my Forest Through the Trees piece (that I still brought for the Leader's Exhibit even though I wasn't teaching). I had a lot of great questions and conversations about my work. So much so that I need to check and make sure I'm not talking too much or boring someone because I do love to talk about my artwork. Once I check myself I'm reminded that I'm among people who also love to do what I do, so really we are all here for a week of full fiber emergence.

Neon gypsy leaf bracelet, with the hands, and the fabric...

(there's a lot going on here, that's all I have to say about how this is displayed.)

The only thing that stings a bit  was "do you teach?" or "I'd love to take a class from you" and then I mention that I had 2 classes for this conference but they were both cancelled due to low enrollment. It's helping me learn that there's a disconnect between my class offerings and people knowing the kind of work I do with the techniques I want to teach. I can't exactly put a leaf panel that took me months or years to finish along side a class description for the Russian Leaf class I teach because most people only finish 2-4 leaves in a 6 hour class. I mentioned this while talking to Sarah and John. John suggested that a lot of instructors put their larger work with their headshot. Either in the background or a photo of the work connected to the headshot. I love this idea, so now I need new headshots. 

I'm behind on blogging...well, I feel like I'm behind on everything. I've been struggling getting back to a regular routine and what I want to work on next vs what I "should" be working on. I'm really inspired and want to play with a create ALL THE THINGS. I recently posted a video on Instragram rattling on about this particular artist's dilemma which I then stuck up on YouTube if you want to check it out:

(I recorded this as we were getting ready to go to a punk-ska show)

I just got back to brushing up on circular warping my inkle loom and tablet weaving.  I've also decided to play with weaving undulating twill now that my new loom is set up and ready to weave on. 

Sampling for the Anger Weaving

I don't often sample before I start in on a new large piece but I've decided to try to work with a "stash" yarn from a collection that I call "Sally's Mom's Stash." I started by making sure it would dye over the "hornet blue" color that it's label says it is. I had a lot of fun playing with dyeing again and had to keep reminding myself that it was just for a sample. Not that I wouldn't possibly be using excess weft yarn for the final piece, but I needed to not be too hard on myself about re-dyeing colors until they felt right.

I posted a lot of video of this process and my weaving, teaching myself how to use Instagram reels (with some help from WeaverBee) and encouragement from other colleagues and friends. I hate posting video but I'm getting more comfortable with it. Some of these videos even make it over to my YouTube Channel:

I have to admit, after finishing this sample piece, which doesn't look like much, I was no longer excited about having this warp on my loom. This is why I prefer to put on a fresh warp for every new piece. The colors aren't right for the final project and I've gotten what I need from the sample weaving. What to do now?  I fixed a warping error in the reed and decided to try creating a smaller piece with another idea I've been trying to work out.

I let this warp sit for a few days and then did a quick draft of this idea that I've been struggling to get the imagery on. It'll end up being a finished piece rather than another sample and I'm surprised at just how much I like how it's turning out. More to come on that piece. For now, I'll be weaving on this warp while I start to break down and print out the large cartoon for the anger weaving to be taped together. I'm still working on a final title which is why it's just called the anger weaving right now.