Double Rainbow Evolves, part 2
As I experimented with weaving in the Double Rainbow system in two blocks on 8 shafts and seeing how the combinatory possibilities for color and pattern were truly endless, I realized that I needed to find a system for encoding and notating information. Otherwise it would be like falling down a rabbit hole and never being able to find your way out again. This problem had me stymied for quite some time and I spent…
Double Rainbow Evolves, part 1
I experimented with Double Rainbow warps on four shafts for several months (see the previous blog post, Color in Space and Time), each time discovering more ways that the same warp setup could be woven. Since it is a doubleweave with each layer set the same as if it were a single layer, the total sett is twice as dense. This means that it can be woven as warp rep with a thick and thin…
Color in Space and Time
In June of 2011 I taught at the Contemporary Weavers of Texas conference, and afterwards went back to Houston for a couple days with my friend and weaver, Laura Viada. She told me that she had recently seen an amazing exhibit at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and she thought it was something that I would want to see as well. Was she ever right! The exhibit was a retrospective show of fifty-some years…
Off to Peru, 2019
Every year Andean Textile Arts sponsors a benefit tour to Peru – sometimes two, in the case of special events, such as the Tinkuy conferences. The organization always sends two board members as representatives who act as general ambassadors and friendly helpers, in addition to our Peruvian tour guide and his assistant. Naturally I hoped to be asked to serve in that role one day. That opportunity came last year, when I was asked to…
Off to Peru, 2017
Several months after teaching doubleweave at the 2013 Tinkuy conference I was contacted by Marilyn Murphy and asked if we could chat on the phone so that she could interview me about my experience and write an article for the Andean Textile Arts newsletter. I described in detail my process in preparing for the workshop, as well as how everything went in the class itself. I told her that it was one of the highlights…
Off to Peru, 2013
Summer in Santa Fe is usually a time of nonstop events, and my favorite of all of these is the International Folk Art Market. Since it began 16 years ago I have worked as a volunteer each July to help out in booths of artisans from all over the world. After going to Peru in 2010 to attend the first Tinkuy and go on the Andean Textile Arts tour, I decided to specify each year…
Off to Peru, 2010
I don’t remember when I first became fascinated with the notion of visiting Peru, but sometime early in my weaving life I learned about the unparalleled doubleweave pickup textiles that had been woven in pre-Columbian Peru, as well as masterpieces in many other techniques. Then in the early 1990’s I took a seminar with Ed Franquemont in which he talked about the quipus, the knotted cords that functioned as record keeping devices for the Incan…
Word Play
I have always enjoyed playing around with words. Palindromes, anagrams, crossword puzzles, codes. I can remember that as a kid, when I was riding in the car with my family, I would look at words on signs and billboards and see how they would read backwards, and see what other words I could make by rearranging their letters. In junior high my best friend and I invented a code so that we could write notes…
Welcome!
Welcome to my first blog post ever! This is not something that I had ever even thought of doing before, but life is very different now and it’s clear that I need to adapt to the times and have other ways of connecting with you. In early March I flew to Washington DC to attend an annual board meeting for Andean Textile Arts, and followed that with a three-day workshop in rural Virginia. When I…