Frida Hansen often wove birds in her wool open warp transparencies.
My new transparent tapestry will feature a bird, a full-size standing eagle. (I measured.) I visited the National Eagle Center in Red Wing, Minnesota, on a memorable summer outing this year with grandchildren. This eagle posed nicely.
I only saw eagles in movies or books as a child. Now I admire beautiful majestic eagles frequently. They settle in trees next to lakes in Minneapolis; one even flew over the skylight above my desk. Sitting by Lake Bemidji, I saw an eagle snatch a fish from the water and swoop to a nest high in a nearby tree. My grandchildren have the opportunity to see eagles on a fairly routine basis. They consider them thrilling, and so do I.
I also want to emphasize the eagle as a more universal symbol, as I feel it’s been a bit co-opted by MAGA hats and a right-wing connotation. Most people know the story of the eagle as an American symbol, its demise in the wild, and remarkable recovery. This brief synopsis is from the Library of Congress, “The Bald Eagle, Creature of Nature and an American Symbol.”
In 1940 Congress passed the Bald Eagle Protection Act making it illegal to kill the birds or hurt their eggs. However, over the next 70 years we almost lost the eagle, as it was forced to the brink of extinction.
In the 1960’s the National Audubon Society had completed a survey showing there were only 417 breeding pairs of eagles left in the lower 48 states. After searching for what might have been causing the decline of the eagles, scientist discovered the culprit was DDT, or Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, a pesticide that started being used in the 1960’s. Unknown at the time, DDT caused eagles and other birds to absorb less calcium, so that when they laid their eggs, the shells, weakened from the chemical, would be crushed when the parents nested over them. This led to a rapid and terrible decline in bird populations all over the country (Wurster, 21).
In 1973, the use of DDT was banned and that same year the Endangered Species Act was passed by Congress, giving protections to dozens and dozens of species on the brink of extinction. Through captive breeding, protection laws and stopping the use of DDT, the bald eagle was downgraded to a threatened species in 1994. By 2007, they had made such a comeback that they were taken off the endangered species list entirely (Rauber, 32).
Thank you, federal government. Thank you, federal government agencies.
I saw this painting by Finnish National Romantic artist Eero Järnefelt (1863-1937) by chance on Instagram, and thought the tree and rock landscape could be abstracted even more for my eagle — it could be Minnesota, rather than Finland.
My husband and I took a weekend trip to Washington D.C. last month to see exhibits at Smithsonian Museums. It’s a city that makes me feel patriotic, and that feeling isn’t always easy to muster when our lives are filled with divisive political news. The Department of Justice has imposing doors, one with a key-like design I liked.
I decided to use the key motif for the bottom border of the eagle tapestry. First, I tested it on my sampling loom (there is a sample of a different motif with circles underneath).
The design process took a good deal of drawing, cutting, and taping, and finally, bringing it to full size. I know that many changes in design and details will take place along the way. For one, the talons of the eagle feet aren’t satisfactory.
Will the full-size eagle look majestic, or uninteresting? Can I use a bit of open warp and clever tapestry weaving to make the eagle look eagle-ish? Right now I am at the point where I am second-guessing all my planning and designing, but that ALWAYS happens when I start a new tapestry.