Time to develop

My relationship with weaving began almost twenty years ago when I came face-to-face with a large contemporary tapestry created by a young student. Realising that this individual had made the conscious decision to use their time, day after day, week after week, month after month creating this piece of work, and wanting to do it more than anything else, affected me profoundly. Our time here is such a precious commodity. I thought 'I need to be doing this too'.

Weaving doesn’t give away its secrets easily. Patience leads to discovery. To get results after sustained effort feels like an achievement. The formula is simple. In order to discover, go to the loom and cover the warps. Time spent at the loom = results. Evaluate, edit techniques and styles, evolve, move on to the next piece. Repeat.

In this sample, I’ve used a lot of whipping around single warps to create surface texture. I find it a lot more interesting to give the impression of a line without actually creating a solid line. If you give enough information, a line is visually assumed – I find that exciting. I’ve been creating these lines with a white cotton that glows under UV light. I am fascinated with the idea of combining ancient and modern.

The integrity of the weaving is really important to me. Hence, in this textural sample, I've been using plain weave amongst the whipping, and firmer wefts next to soft wefts to give structure and stability. In the next textural piece, I’d like to experiment more with wrapping vertically and whipping horizontally, and creating more contrasts in colours and textures.