I would not be doing what I do today if it were not for demos. Yes…. I was the kid mom and dad would lose at places like Greenfield Village – part of the Henry Ford museum complex in Dearborn, Michigan, Historic Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, or any of the Mackinac State Historic Parks at the northern tip of Michigan’s lower […]
Guilds and associations are great places to connect with other artists, bounce ideas around, get support, feedback, and be challenged to push one’s creativity and art. My fiber guild is the Ann Arbor Fiberarts Guild and back in May 2014, a challenge was issued for the April 2015 meeting: Recycled and Repurposed Runway Tablecloths, cassette tape, telephone wire, […]
The summer of 2011 I took my first tapestry weaving course at The Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers summer school held in Edinburgh, Scotland that year. Our instructor, Dot Seddon, had us working on simple frame looms which are very portable, fast and easy to warp, plus I brought along one that I had made. […]
Critic (noun) a person who expresses an unfavorable opinion of something For many people, including myself, the idea of having your art judged does not bring happy thoughts to mind and can crush creativity. My elementary school did not have an art teacher. A picture from a magazine would be taped to the chalkboard and we were simply told […]
At the end of 2013 the rough construction was competed for my studio space on 5 acres of woodland in central Michigan. See the November & December 2013 achieve for Riverbend – rustic beginnings and Riverbend – building the studio [part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4] 2014 has been a year filled with continued work. In […]
Astonishingly well preserved Iron Age tunic will be recreated (mostly) using the spinning and weaving techniques available at the time. You can read about the examination of the wool fibres, method of spinning, the diamond twill weaving pattern and other factors which have been revealed by this project. Click on the link to read this […]
Every artist knows there are times when a project just does not want to go as planned and this was one of those projects. In September I started on a commissioned shawl. The warp was 10/2 cotton in 20 colors. 642 yarns threaded in a point twill over 8 shafts/harnesses. 3″ into the weaving and I […]
In the middle of September I spend 3 fabulous days in a felting workshop with international feltmaker and clothing designer Charity Van der Meer from the Netherlands. The workshop was organized by Michigan felt artist Dawn Edwards and held at Design Street, a community art education center in Plainwell, Michigan. The old fire station has lots of natural light and plenty of space […]
On August 8-9-10, 2014 the Michigan League of Handweavers Summer Workshops were held at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. I received a learning grant from MLH to take the Tablet Borders Woven Simultaneously With Loom Weaving workshop taught by master weaver Inge Dam. Originally done on a warp-weighted loom, this type of weaving goes back to […]
For some reason the video link for the waulking demo did not come through with the email notice for my last blog posting. Here it is http://youtu.be/5AEdIM43nC0