For several years I’ve intended to add a small piece to Line Dufour’s project: Fate, Destiny and Self-Determination, in which contributed small weavings become part of a monumental abstract arrangement of color, shape, memories and feelings. Line posted that the next exhibit will be in Portugal this fall.
I thought of a small tapestry I wove last December, while stuck on the couch after foot surgery.
I love the weaving of Michael Crompton, and wanted to experiment with the lozenge shapes that give his tapestries such depth and variation. This is a detail from his amazing “Rooster” tapestry, found in this gallery on his website: http://michael-crompton.co.uk/2010-2020/.
I warped a small pipe loom and decided to center Edvard Munch’s wavy-shaped Skrik figure in the center of Crompton lozenges. That was fun, and I became more familiar with the lozenge technique, but the Scream figure ended up a bit flat-headed, more like a Frankenstein.
Once I was on my feet and on to other projects, the small tapestry languished in a bag. But after I took a wonderful pulled warp tapestry workshop with Susan Iverson in Minneapolis recently, I took it out and thought of sending it on for Line Dufour’s project. Susan demonstrated a technique of using thread to invisibly fasten the edges of a tapestry by sewing up and down the channels of weaving along the edges. Once the edges are stabilized, the warp can be cut off altogether. I decided to take out the even edges of my small Scream piece and leave the edges wavy. I also left a bit of fringe.
It will be in upcoming exhibition at beginning of September in Guimarães, Portugal, part of Contextile 2024.
Be sure to check out the Facebook group for the project to see the really imaginative textile bits that have been submitted from many countries.