My just-completed eagle tapestry will be part of the upcoming Past/Present/Future of Folk Art exhibit at Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa, from July 11, 2025-January 11, 2026.
This is the description I wrote for the application:
I’ve been researching the wool open warp transparent technique of the famous Art Nouveau era tapestry artist Frida Hansen (1855-1931). She was influential in the revival of Norwegian billedvev [tapestry], and her technique had many elements in common with historical tapestries, including clear, abstracted pattern areas, the use of Norwegian wool, and finishing in ends so the pieces are reversible. And she often wove birds! My contemporary American bird is a symbol of the success of federal regulations that banned the DDT that threatened the eagle’s existence. The eagles seen by the first Norwegian immigrants disappeared from the skies for decades. Now they soar over the countryside and cities.
The bird tapestry also follows in the footsteps of Norwegian-American weaver Pauline Fjelde; her owl tapestry is part of the Vesterheim collection.
I never saw eagles as a child, and now I see them on local walks and even saw one fly over the skylight in my home near downtown Minneapolis. I remain impressed.
Here is the enticing owl tapestry woven in 1913 by Pauline Fjelde, based on a cartoon designed by the Norwegian artist Thorolf Holmboe. I love the bear and fox and frog as well.
And for the weavers in the audience, the steaming saga
All weavers, and especially tapestry weavers, know that taking a piece off the loom is exciting and worthy of toasting with wine, but it is never the end of the work needed to finish it.
With the eagle, I was completely surprised when I released the weaving from the tension of the loom and discovered that the tall brown tree on the left hand side was all ripple-y and buckled. I know that when a tall woven area is next to unwoven threads you have to be careful that the weaving is woven without packing in too much yarn, or the woven area will have ripples. I used a new yarn for the first time for the brown, a lovely, heathery color of Hillesvåg Ask yarn. But I didn’t suspect the buckling would happen while I was weaving.
The advice I have based on this experience is that in the open warp transparency technique you should avoid long vertical woven areas next to long unwoven areas. I have told students about this in my workshops, but I thought I would be able to manage it because of my experience with the technique.
BUT! Wool is a magical material, and through the miracle of steam, I fixed the problem almost completely. Here’s how the tree trunk appeared off the loom.
Often I can just steam the piece and make ripples compress to a nice flat surface. I use old linen napkins that are made wet and wrung out. But this time the ripples seemed so bad that I made gathering stitches with buttonhole thread before steaming. The stitches were easy to pull out after steaming.
Happily, the result of my steaming was almost complete success. Certainly it was good enough that viewers will not notice anything amiss with the tree.
The finishing took a long time because I braided the warp ends at the top, folded them over, and finished with a wrap. In this way the piece is completely reversible, and could be hung away from a wall. Perhaps it could hang high in a room, an eagle in the sky…