Report from the Vesterheim Workshop: Green Roses Complete

The first two sessions of my Frida Hansen wool open warp transparent tapestry workshops were so surprising, in a marvelous way. I offered several designs to try, taken from portions of Frida Hansen’s transparencies. Several students opted for her signature roses of one sort or another. One snippet came from this piece, Rosentrær og liljekonvaller [Rose Tree and Lilies of the Valley].

Amusingly, this is the one photographed upside down in the Norwegian Digital Library.

Here is the section I clipped out as a suggested pattern to try the technique.

Deborah Thomas from Fayetteville, Arkansas, made this image her own – she flipped it over, chose unconventional rose colors, and added a geometric border.

Frida Hansen also experimented with a variety of rose colors, including black and blue.

Here is a watercolor of a double rose tree pattern by Frida Hansen (seen at the Library of the Nasjonalmuseet), with standard red roses, but a yellow tree and leaves.

Here’s a shot with Deborah’s piece backlit against the Arkansas countryside. I think Deborah channeled the experimental spirit of Frida Hansen, and wove her roses beautifully, too.