Summer reading: New Potatoes, Tilleke Schwarz

Our gardens here are in full-on cornucopia season, and here is Tilleke Schwarz' new book, titled appropriately,  New Potatoes, with an abundance of new work in her complex, layered, free embroidery style. Looking back at 18th and 19th c. Dutch embroidery samplers, she borrows here and there from old motifs, and text samplers. In the 70's she became fascinated with these samplers, and even replicated a Friesian sampler from 1730, in counted cross stitch.   Samplers were the work of  young girls, usually worked in silk on linen,  to teach them needlework, cross stitch,  darning,  embroidery, and how to spell and read.Unsatisfied with replicating the beautiful samplers, Tilleke soon decided to stitch her own designs, following her own ideas.

Her contemporary samplers are fast forward narratives. Her subject is the complexity and chaos of  the digital information glut, which streams toward us at internet speed.   Tilleke slowly embroiders, texts and images that catch her attention, plucked from the stream, slowing the hyper speed to a stand still, using the antique and ordinary art form of the stitched sampler. On her cloths, sometimes hand dyed, she layers images from her everyday life, in hoopless, embroidered stitches: her cat, a toilet, her new washing machine,  and people, with internet text fragments, creating an appealing visual diary of personal and world wide interconnection, which is the new normal.

The opposite of rote work, Tilleke's embroideries are free asymmetries, looping couched lines,  tangled line, a little wild, and beautiful. They are exciting and liberating. She also writes about how she creates the embroideries, her process and composition, and  the difficulty of working as a textile artist, a woman, creating art with a needle. Textile art, and women artists particularly, have always struggled for recognition.

Tilleke's work has been recognized, exhibited in European exhibits, and galleries, and published in many books and magazines. ( I first read about her in an article in the beautiful textiles magazine,  Selvedge).

Her first book, Mark Making, a cross stitch and embroidery thriller,  has long been out of print, but her second book, New Potatoes, is every bit as inspiring.  I have been selling it here in my store, and can ship copies, if anyone would like to have one. The books are paper covers, each signed by Tilleke.
Book+ shipping in the US, $30.  Email susan@avalanchelooms.com if you'd like me to send you one.

How I Celebrated MLK Day

I look out at the woods and an idea comes to my mind's eye.  Once I have a visual thought like that, even lazy as I am, I can't resist it.  What would it look like if I put some weaving out there in the snowy woods today? I have to see it.  I take some rag fragments I found in a drawer out to the woods, and put them in some branches.  It looks all right, but here's another version, a longer story.

Monday.  Martin Luther King Day.  We had our first wintry snow fall.  I decided to go on a rag bombing walk up to the quarry, with some rag scraps, needles, threads, my new camera.  I picked some trees to bomb, sort of back from the road, and started in.  As I edged my way into the thorns and bushes, I found the trees I'd picked from the road, to sew my rag weaves to, were actually across a ditch, on a ridge in front of another much deeper ditch.  I decided to take a few pictures of my weaves suspended on branchlets,  to test the idea.  I did notice then that I'd worn rather smooth bottom boots for this outing, and the upshot was a sudden downslide into the deeper ditch, protecting my camera with my elbow as I plunged down.  Ouch.  Ouch. Ouch.

I came to rest feeling hurt.  My knee hurt, my elbow hurt. But my camera was ok.  I crawled back out on my hands and knees, back up to the road before I noticed my face felt strangely empty where my glasses should have been. 

" Funny, I thought I was wearing my glasses when I came out here."

 So, I crawled back out again, to where I fell, and searched around in the snow, but couldn't find them.   I headed back down to the shop, with my rag bombing kit, to see if I'd left them safely behind.  No glasses.  This time I put on my good kicks, black suede boots with deep waffles, left behind by my daughter a few years ago,  and heavy gloves.  I hiked back up the hill, and back to the ditch-ravine,  back to the spot where I came to rest, and searched again, and this time I found them, buried. 

No photos were taken of my accident.  I thought I'd go back out again today,  to sew my rags around my chosen trees, but now it's snowing horizontally.  Miraculously, my knee and elbow are feeling fine.

Another thought came to me while floundering around out in the woods: I realized how much I love Martin Luther King, Jr.  He ignited the imagination of oppressed people, he shared a vision that compelled them to unite and take action. Together they had power they'd never before imagined.  I get it.  He was an artist and a great socialist, and my hero.

Heat

Late afternoon in our house, the shade pulled to keep sun out of the dining room.  A cigar box smells dusty, and is the perfect metaphor for my brain.  Got any-thing? No. No-thing.

The old farm apron is my favorite cotton print, even if I don't feel like cooking.  I like its pocket, with the round ric rac trim. Coleslaw for supper, with a Bloody Mary. Lost kittens found napping near their big project, Hole to China.  Both are alarmed when Carl sets up a ladder to scrape and paint the peeling siding from past winters' ice dams.

Still feeling bored at the grocery, I see my friend and neighbor, Elizabeth. She said it's a distressing holiday so far.

She's been taking care of her neighbor's animals while they're gone.We are living through an epic magnitude of raccoons this summer. I read Sterling North's Rascal when I was 11, and for many years  wanted nothing more than a tame raccoon for a pet, and a tame crow to live in a belfry of a church next door.  I've always loved wildlife, and still do.  But, I've discovered, there is a them and us, when it comes to numbers.  A few lady bugs are charming, a wall full or a window full is a terrible situation for all of us.

Raccoons entered the chicken house of Elizabeth's neighbors, two nights in a row.  The first night 3 chickens were killed and maimed, the next night the rooster disappeared.  It was a bloody mess, she said, and there was a one-legged chicken that had to be killed. She had already trapped and killed 7 raccoons in her own yard.  To tell you the truth, she said, it's kind of depressing.  Boring seemed a better kind of hot summer day, actually. I didn't mention to her that someone had recently seen a mother skunk and a litter of babies crossing the road to her barn.

What was I thinking?

No, seriously. What was I thinking about before we left to visit our family out west just 5 days ago? This book and these yarns were on the table. I was thinking about something new. But what?  The show catalog Tradition Transformed, Brown/Grotta, No. 22,  is a favorite of mine. Japanese ideas and  9 contemporary weavers, are represented in a collection originally curated by Sheila Hicks, in 1995, at Brown/Grotta gallery, and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, in  NewYork,  and to coincide,  Brown/Grotta gallery, 1998.

Chiaki Maki and her sister, Kaori Maki, weavers, are part of this group.  Their work and words are so clear to my mind's eye, and help me to think better about what I try to do, every time I come back to weave in my own studio.  Their elegance alone would be hard to match, but their textiles incite memory, or something less tangible, something not quite remembered.  Can a textile do that?  What a painting or a poem can?  Obviously, it can.  Here are the proofs.

When I was weaving as a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, I experienced a moment in which I disappeared, and only the weaving remained. The piece that was born of that moment was fascinating, beyond any description. Such a moment is the very heart of my creation.   Chiaki Maki



                                                                

Hen of the Woods

All weaving came to a standstill.  My husband brought home many bags of clusters of Hen of the Woods, or, Maitakes, that he collected  in the woods.  The mushroom clusters grow at the base of oak trees in the fall. (Similar mushrooms growing on different tree species should be avoided).  They  are very flavorful, and taste like tender meat on chicken wings. They have a firm texture, a little chewy.

They pull apart easily before they are cooked.  I've been sauteeing them , or roasting with olive oil,  garlic and rosemary, salt and pepper.

Often the mushrooms are huge, and may weigh up to 40 pounds.  Enough to last the whole winter, until the morels come up in the spring.  They freeze well, so I've been putting them away, and sampling, sampling, sampling.

Goose Eye

When we first moved to Avalanche we thought we would farm.  I decided to keep a pair of geese since we have a little creek here.  One thing led to another, and soon we had a flock of geese and goslings, numbering 27 animal units.  I loved to watch them swim, or stick their necks out and honk,  running,  flapping their wings chasing each other, or any unfortunate caught in their path.  I remember a pair of scrap iron dealers drove up in a rusted truck once, eyeing my husband's hoard of old rusty junk from the road, and wanting to know if I was ready to sell.  I may have been tempted, but the geese drove them back before they even made it to the porch.  The scrapmen were pretty rough looking, so I was happy to see them go.  And so it was with missionaries, insurance salesmen, and the tax assessor.

Since I had no marketing plan for the geese, and we had become vegetarian,  the flock continued to multiply, until there were enough of them to rise into the air, form a vee and take aim at their chosen landing spot.  The squeaky door of the log house, where their corn feed was stored, would bring on a rush and swirl,  a general rising of bodies into the air,  the vee formation,  direct flight, and crash landing among a din of general honking and flapping bodies around my feet,  a twice daily event.  Once, my visiting mother-in-law, a neat, orderly woman unwittingly opened the squeaky loghouse door, as I watched in horror from my kitchen window.  I dashed out, but not in time to save her.  She had turned to see why the sky had suddenly darkened, only to realize  that a  flock of geese across the field had suddenly risen into the air, formed a squadron, and was now bearing down on her.   She ducked and survived direct hits, but  her dignity was injured.

One fall the goose lot having became too small for them, and feeling the call of the South, the flock rose with a general cacaphony,  swirled twice around the lot, and then split.  Half of the geese formed a vee, and flew off down the road past the old Avalanche general store (downtown Avalanche)  about 4 ft off the ground.  I watched as they swirled around Junie's trailer, and veered South.  They settled on the stream about 2 miles south of Avalanche, and lived at the farm there comfortably for several  more years.

It's been so many years since  I gave them up,  but I did like keeping them.  They were a nuisance, mainly,  but always interesting. They were a cantankerous lot.  I loved the goslings, all in a row, necks outstretched,  weep-weep-weeping behind the mother goose.  And geese lay the loveliest eggs.  I made oak gall ink and wrote with quills a few times.  Once, I was inspired to make a set of authentic cork-and-leather shuttle cocks with real goose feathers, which added an element of unpredictability to a game of badminton.

Thinking of my geese this rainy, July, Monday, I just finished a set of goose eye woven summer scarfs,  of hand-dyed bamboo, with linen, cotton and tencel.  Oh, and a little silk.

Shee that Wanteth..

. . . shee that wanteth a sleeke-stone to smooth hir linnen, wil take a pebble . . . (a woman with no sleekstone to smooth her linen will use a pebble)          John Lyly, Euphues and his England, 1580

That would be me.  Only instead of a sleekstone or a pebble, I have an antique sad iron.

I wove two towels on a long staple ivory cotton blanket warp, with linen wefts.  After I cut them off the loom, I washed them in warm, soapy water,  rinsed them, and hung them to dry.  When they were dried, I used my antique sad irons to "smooth" the linen, instead of a cold mangle, which I have none.

The towel was laid out on my wood shop table, and I used the cold iron warp wise, working across the towel, then turning it over and working the iron in  long strokes across the back, as well.  I  did this for about 15 minutes.  It looked good then.  I also dragged the iron weft wise, and that seemed to work, too.

It was exciting to see the coarse weave became so lustrous, and smooth, and the Goose-eye design more prominent. The drape of the towel over my arm made me want to carry it with me everywhere, even to accost my husband enthusiastically with the towels,  to feel the cool drape.   I'd read about the technique a while ago in Vav (the Swedish weaving magazine) but forgot about it until now.  The smoothed linen drapes, and though it folds, it doesn't crease, and the smoothing process was not too strenuous a workout.  A linen smoothing board (made of a whalebone)  and a glass smoother were found among an exhumed Viking woman's burial items, dating back over 1000 years.

Woman v. Weasel

Coming out the back door of the store, headed for the house, I crossed the creek on the 2 board foot bridge. I had bread in the oven, probably overbaking. On the path down to the creek I began to hear a terrible screeching noise ahead, coming from the yard by the kitchen. Maybe the cat had caught a spring bunny that was making this terrible cry? But no. I realized it was much closer than that. It was under my feet, in the creek. It was a brown animal sitting on a rock beneath the foot bridge, with some water on its fur. It was looking at me, and shrieking. I wondered if the cat had dragged it into the creek. But it was as big as the cat, and it looked mean. I stopped in my tracks, then backed up, went back to the store, and googled weasel.

There it was. A longtailed weasel, of the kind that lives in many places all over the North American continent. It especially likes watery places. It was about 16" long, tan colored, with a humpy back. It had a scraggly tail that was about 6" long, it would make a loud chirping noise when it was frightened, or when it was about to attack.

We have never seen a weasel in broad daylight in all the years I've lived here. I decided to go back to take its picture. I also took my blue and yellow IKEA umbrella, as a weapon, in case of "attack." As soon as I opened my back door the screeching sound (chirp?) started up again. As I approached the path, it turned to get me in its sights, apparently deciding which part of me to latch onto with its teeth (which I now noticed). Getting the weasel to pose for a picture seemed like a really bad idea. I rapidly opened and shut the blue and yellow umbrella, to demonstrate I was not going to be an easy victim. This only seemed to infuriate it. I decided to call it a draw, and walked to my kitchen by the long way around on the road.

Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel / The monkey thought was all in fun / Pop! goes the weasel! A very sinister sounding nursery rhyme, when you think of it. What about Toad Hall in the Wind In The Willows, overtaken by the terrible rabble of low-life stoats and WEASELS!

The weaving-knitter-felters and chicken-keepers I consulted at Kindred Threads had weasel lore aplenty to share. Barb said weasels in winter are ermine. That's the best that can be said. Mostly the weasel story is gory, their particular way of death dealing--biting the heads off of chickens-- returning again and again to do the deed, entering through the tiniest crack in a board, until finally, there are no more chickens. Their advice was to shoot it, and quick.

Luckily, I keep no poultry of any kind, and since FeltBackie died last winter, I've got just one cat. So I avoided the creek for the rest of the afternoon. Eventually, my weasel seems to have lost interest here, and wandered back down the creek. I admit while crossing the bridge near midnight, under the stars, as I go back to my house, and bed, I remember my weasel is still out there somewhere, maybe waiting under the bridge to fly up under my feet--POP!

The Least Weaver

I weave rugs made of rags. I am one among the class of rag weavers past and present, weaving humble rags on basement looms, under single bare bulbs, among stacks of old newspapers, and too many cats. The wind whistles across a bleak midwestern prairie. In front of the house, a handpainted scrap wood sign with the words Rug Weaver dangles from a fence wire.

Not that I aspired to this when I began to weave. With my barn loom, and a studio with a view, I was a handweaver. Never troubled by low self esteem, I was doing no less than designing and creating contemporary textiles.

My heroes were, and still are: Anni Albers, Pia Wallen, Marta Maas-Fjetterstrom, Ann Sutton, Reiko Sudo. But my other heroes were the anonymous rural basement and shed weavers, weaving the rugs like the ones my mother put on the floors in our house. Rugs I studied closely, cheek pressed to the weave on the floor, counting threads, trying to imagine how everything became so organized. I'd never even seen a loom then. I carried a rolled up rag rug to keep in my cubby for naps on my first day of kindergarten.

When I got my first loom, my first rugs were made of rags, and making them engaged every bit of my creative vision. To this day, it still does. I'm never so involved at the loom as when I'm working on rags. Which is to say, I never so forget myself as when I'm working with rags.

Silk rags shine, velvet rags pull in the light, plastic mimics mother-of-pearl. Knit rags draw in, woven rags stay put. The surface is sometimes thready, from fraying rags, which I like. Knits bubble up when woven between two rows of woven rag strips. Wool rags look rich. Wool rag rya knots are luxurious. Commingle rags and abstract designs emerge. Even the cut off rags on the floor suggest new rugs, new colors to combine.

Weaving rags for me is most like making a painting. I weave by eye, and am prepared to unweave. I know from my own experience that rag weaving with all its variable elements can quickly become a bad thing. I've practiced noticing this sooner rather than later in the years I've been weaving. It is a fact that some of my lesser 'lesser works' (the odd throw rug) have found use only as garden mulch. But, truly there are times, and many of them, when what happens on the loom between the beater and the front beam is pure delight. When a least moment of ecstasy causes me to skip a little dance, and sing a little song, disturbing the cat.

wednesday work

A new order of blanket wool arrived: large soft pieces of gray, gray-blue, mushroom, basil green, soft yellow, and a beautiful bark-gray-brown. The sun lit up the stack, and I don't know which ones to start weaving first. My own rule on my Winter Rugs is to weave just 2 colors in one rug. I'm very tempted to put all of the colors in one long, long rug. I'd like to see that, I know. But I'm going to try to resist it, and attempt to stick to my plan.

Vote for Obama!

I finished a brown and gray-blue rug, dampened it, and dried it in the dryer. The lint trap caught a lot of wool fiber. When I shake it outside in the sunlight, there's no lint. It shrank from 50" when it came off the loom to 45", and became heavy, soft and drapable. I love the heft of these rugs after they're finished. I put this one by my bed last night, to experience the feeling of stepping out on it in the early morning. My husband must think I'm nutty, but he doesn't say so.

Looks like rain

Bring in the clothes and pick the tomatoes because it looks like rain. In a few months the snow and wind may be blowing, and I'll be chipping ice off the step.

Early Fall

I rode my bike downtown (Avalanche, pop. 20 + or - ) this morning because the breeze was cool, and the sun soft. School has begun again, but I don't have any little children to put on the bus. It may rain this afternoon. Life here has never been perfect, but it has always felt right, and it's another good day to weave.

black and white, and wool all over

Now I know it takes 5 lbs of wool blanket remnants to make this. I panicked when I began weaving it, thinking, what if I don't have enough on hand? and purchased an extra 20 lbs. I may be making a batch of black rugs in the near future. For weavers who might be interested, the rug is woven in a 4 shaft double binding weave (not a true double weave, because the layers are interconnected) but took at least 4 long days to weave. The rug has been dampened and tumble dried twice, at high heat, to full it, and to de-lint the cut wool rags. The rug lost 4 " in length, and 1/2" in width after drying.
Final measurement 29.5 in x 5.5 ft. This is the first in at least a pair to be woven before Sept. 1.

Muriel's Variety - closed

Muriel used to sit on a high stool behind the counter of her variety store, crocheting. She lived upstairs. She sold toys, tinsel, flags, socks, crochet yarns, tea cups, handkerchiefs, dish towels, plastic monkey paw backscratchers, crepe paper, coloring books, flannel, thread, a plastic trick knife to stab into your heart. The swans were crocheted by Muriel.

downstairs

Here is the start of a set of wool rugs, woven in Swedish double binding, a 2-layered block weave. I've been wool gathering, and winding warps, calculating, and threading for the last week, so I'm happy to be weaving at last. The blocks are 10" square, but I'm weaving them long so they'll be square when they're finally cut off the loom. To finish, I'll dampen them, then dry them in a hot dryer. I'm cautiously optimistic about the project at the moment.

bitter sweet chocolate

I have been weaving, in fact, I weave everyday. Here is my chocolate wool rug, the first in a series of 2 color wool rugs. The rugs are sized 22" X 3 ft, and 22" X 6 ft, proportions that I like in this style of rug, long and narrow. My next 2-color rug will be gray and olive, possibly.

other texture, other design

Sometime yesterday, a female rosebreasted grosbeak flew into my glass kitchen window, and fell to the ground, dead. Sad to see, but so beautiful. Just after this picture was taken, someone on the porch was seen with feathers about the mouth and whiskers, and the dead bird had mysteriously disappeared.

button, button

I've been looking through my button box this morning. My collection of small buttons used to fit in a tea cup. Here are glass buttons, vintage plastic, Mississippi mother-of-pearl, and 2-hole
bone underwear buttons (my personal favorites). Looking through my mother's button box was a favorite activity of mine when I was a child. These buttons survived the shop fire, and are still my treasure.

the poppy president

Jean brought me poppy heads! She's bringing more. It's poppy doll time again.
Tarja Poppi-nen, popular second term President of the Republic of Poppy-land: her platform,
equal opportunity & education for everyone, healthcare for everyone, an end to world hunger!