Jenny Bowker

Can you discuss your former training in science and the direct advantages this has played in relation to patchwork?

I worked for thirteen years in the field of Electron Microscopy, first in research on bees’ eyes and how they work, then as part of a service unit doing a range of varied and interesting work.

I think the incredibly fine work we did with electron microscopy preparation works well with patchwork. We used to use a cleaned eyelash fixed to a slim glass capillary tube with dental wax to handle the slices of prepared tissue as they floated on a water bath – they were so small. Getting corners to match after this was a piece of cake! Not that I do much traditional work really – and I have relaxed a lot on how perfect work has to be.

Discuss specifically ‘Radiolarian Drift’ in relation to science?

Radiolaria are tiny protozoans that drift in the ocean, and we know them really from their skeletons. I had been working on a project identifying and photographing the skeletons and was fascinated to realise that the tiny line of foam that a wave leaves on the sand is packed with tiny lacy skeletons – constantly redrawing our coastline.

I wanted the work to reference science but not to be too specific so it is a generic radiolarian that no-one would recognise, drifting up from the deep crevasses of the ocean. The quilting added movement and I quilted in silver. The background was a rough heavy indigo blue silk.

This piece was the first I made that melded my life in science to what I had thought of as a nice hobby.

You have spent over 15 years in Arab and Islamic countries. How has this influenced your art?

I think it has influenced my subject matter more than technique. I have made a series of quilts based on Egyptian men. They were a response to a moment of sheer frustration when a friend – no – not a friend but an acquaintance - commented on the fact that you could not trust Arabs – they were all terrorists.

I realised that I could talk my head off. I told people how gentle and kind most Arabs were, how they were generous beyond reason even when they had nothing, how they would drop all walls when they decided that you were a friend, and that friendship would last for life, and how in Egypt particularly, they struggled to make the best of the level of income they had because they truly believed that it was their task to make the best life they could within their means. The talking had little effect.

David Shipler, in Arab and Jew, Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land, wrote “They will not find peace in treaties or in victories. They will find it, if they find it at all, by looking into each other's eyes.”

I decided to work in ways that showed men with their work, and men who were straight and honest and kind, and who were proud of what they did. I have always loved watching people work when they are truly competent. They had to be photo-real so you could see their expressions and look into their eyes.

You have taught in over 22 countries. Can you discuss some of the similarities?

Usually I am working with women and women’s issues are the same worldwide. Family and children usually come first, then work if they have it, then a hobby like patchwork. In some countries where I work life is a struggle and the patchwork is actually a source of income – sometimes the only source of income. That changes the pattern radically and I have to teach in ways that are fast to make, and target things that are quick and saleable. We do not make any queen size quilts in these countries.

Otherwise classes are similar. I leaven the instruction with humour and stories, and vary instruction techniques as some learn by seeing diagrams, others by seeing it - in Iran women were fast with mathematical ideas, they saw patterns that would occur at block corners before I pointed them out – and they were completely new to patchwork.

In Ramallah the women worked incredibly hard – they were all to graduate as patchwork teachers after our one-month course, and it was important to them. They also worked brilliantly in teams with no concerns about who owned the piece that six women were making together. I cannot imagine that happening in the west. We only had two sewing machines in each class of twelve – so it was by far the quickest way to work. The teams were finishing tops in an hour and a half.

How do you cope with language and interpretation when in other countries?

Even when I have a bit of a language I work with an interpreter. It can be challenging and I try to make sure they can also sew. One of these occasions turned into something wonderful. In Australia my husband had been working with the Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies. It was made clear that Australian wives were expected to do something for the wives of foreign generals on the course.

I announced a patchwork class and most of the twenty attended on the first week. By week five we were down to four. Three lasted a long time and one – a Thai friend who became one of my ‘sisters’ stayed all year. Vanida Navakul fell into patchwork as if she had been born to do it. Each week we met at her house. I taught patchwork and she showed me a new dish for a Thai lunch. I told her she had to go back to Thailand and teach – she was really gifted and hated the seamstress work she had been doing.

When I needed an interpreter in Thailand I asked for Vanida. I knew she had not started work in any way and was too shy to promote herself in patchwork. After a week of my classes I could see shop owners looking at her in amazement.
She was not just interpreting – she was moving around the classes helping students in Thai while I demonstrated in English. She had bookings for weeks at the end of it and now has a very successful business in Bangkok – with two long arm machines operating from her shops. It is a marvelous feeling knowing that for one of my dearest friends I really did teach her something that changed her life.

Expand on one of your many textile tours ‘Postcards from Cairo; Do you want to come to Syria and Egypt with me?

I LOVED doing these tours. They have stopped at the moment. Syria is out – for my lifetime at least. Egypt is struggling a little still and it is hard to entice people to go there even though it is probably fine. We limited numbers so we could all fit in a small bus and so I did not lose people in long walks through tiny alleys in suqs.

I ran three tours. The final one was two weeks before Egypt had its first revolution and the mobs were in Tahrir calling for Mubarak to resign – and he still had not when I decided to switch it into Jordan.

One of the best highlights was a night in the house of Widad Kawar, who is known as Umm l'ibas al-falastini—the mother of Palestinian dress. She wrote the following wonderful books and I particularly recommend Threads of Identity.

- Kawar, Widad: Threads of Identity: Preserving Palestinian Costume and Heritage ISBN 978-9963-610-41-9 Rimal Publications. 2011

- Kawar, Widad: Pracht Und Geheimnis - Kleidung Und Schmuck Aus Palästina Und Jordanien ISBN 3-923158-15-7 Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum Munich. 1987

- Kawar, Widad and Tania Nasir: Palestinian Embroidery : Traditional "Fallahi" Cross-Stitch ISBN 3-927270-04-0. Munich, State Museum of Ethnography. 1992.

- Widad Kawar and Shelagh Weir: Costumes and Wedding Customs in Bayt Dajan. "biography". Kawar Arab Heritage Collection.

Widad dressed us all up in the costumes of different areas of Palestine. It was a really wonderful night – and she had seen us at incredibly short notice.

On another part of the trip in Syria between Palmyra and Damascus I had rung ahead and asked a tiny desert coffee truckstop to hold milking their sheep until we arrived so my travellers could see it.

Although it had nothing to do with textiles it was mentioned by many as one of the great experiences of the trip.

On earlier trips that were able to go to Egypt visits to Wissa Wassef Tapestry Project and the stitchers employed by the Anat Foundation in Syria who live in the tiny village area of were highlights.

Wissa Wassef treats its weavers as artists. There is no pressure on them, they choose their own designs and subjects, and they are not pushed to work. Their work is spectacular.

In Jebel al Hoss the women live with their families in mudbrick beehives. It is bleak country – freezing and windswept in Winter, and scorching and windswept in Summer. It is in the area we used to call a ‘plant and pray’ area. They do exquisite embroideries which are marketed as bags and clothing to the rich and privileged in Damascus – and worldwide.

Can you explain ‘Sandstorm over White Dessert’?

This quilt uses a combination of raw edged applique and simple piecing. Many of the fabrics are hand dyed or painted. Sandstorm over the White Desert is the sixth quilt in the series. Magdy Badrmany became a friend of ours while we lived in Egypt. He is a Bedouin guide in the White Desert and we were impressed by his professionalism, his driving skill, his sense of humour and the way he simply and quickly set up our camps and cooked wonderful food for us.

On one camping trip a sandstorm blew up on the horizon. We watched it approaching in some trepidation. I did not want sand in my SLR camera so I memorised the changes. I was fascinated as we watched the ominous approach, and saw the way the shadow of the storm changed the colours of the white desert. As we watched, creams and warm golds became silver and mauve.

Magdy was calm and unworried – as always. I added a brief text in my own hand writing at the quilting stage, explaining very simply who Magdy was.

I made the quilt and sent Magdy a text to tell him to check his email. In Bahariya Oasis, where he lives, there was only one possible internet connection for him – the local coffee shop. In Egypt women do not go to coffee shops. I had sent two tiny picture files – one of the quilt with me in front of him so you could see that it was life sized and one of just the quilt.

Magdy took his wife. She wore full Nekeb to go there – a face cover with just slits for her eyes. As the images started to download – very slowly on the dial up modem – Magdy went to get coffee. Next thing she was hitting his shoulder.

When he asked why she pointed to the screen where it looked as if Magdy had his hand on my bottom – real me, quilted Magdy. Luckily the other image cleared things up. I realised why she did not realise it was a quilt – in the tiny file the pieced sky just looked pixelated.

Discuss your photographic technique to quilt making. Perhaps you can use ‘Mohamed Sa’ad – Caretaker of the Mosque’ to explain this technique?

I used composites of several photographs for this piece. The face had to be accurate, but I wanted to use him in front of the magnificent silver and bronze medallion on the mosque door.

I traced different elements separately and put them together. I then make the drawings bigger, scaling some up more than others. I outline every different colour, not just every different value. These become pattern pieces for the raw edged applique. Each piece is matched to a piece of fabric, cut out and ironed down with a fusible webbing. Stitching holds it securely and adds a lot more linework. Then quilting adds another level. I do not want a quilted groove on each change of colours on his face – the quilting is contouring and often ignores the colour changes.

For the mosque door I pinned foiled jersey over the almost-finished quilted quilt. I stitched the lines of the intricate design, then cut it away with a soldering iron and restitched it.

Explain your project 'The Tentmakers of Old Cairo'?

Our move to Egypt was the time I moved me into an orbit I already knew. In 1981 I had visited Egypt during the Gulf War. One of my strongest memories was a visit to the Street of the Tentmakers. The Street of the Tentmakers is colourful and vivid but the work is slowly dying as an art. It had lost its Egyptian audience as wealthy Egyptians wanted French tapestries, and poorer ones were just not interested.

The tentmakers are men who used to – and still do - make tents. However they are best known for the exquisite applique they use – and originally it formed the inside of every wall of a tent. They now use printed fake cloth for the tents as people are usually unwilling to pay for the full handmade applique. They make panels for people to hang in their homes, or to use as quilts. The work is made with solid coloured cottons, and it is ornate and beautiful.

Subjects range from the purely decorative to calligraphy and storytelling.

Tarek Abouelenin explained to me that he and his company had invested fifteen years of savings to go to a Furniture Expo in Holland. They had completely failed to increase the business and companies who ordered wanted 3,000 piece in two weeks, and they just did not have the stitchers to do that.

As he was talking I was thinking – it is the wrong audience! You need to be seen by quilters or textile workers who understand exactly how wonderful you are and the difficulties of your work.

An invitation from Expertise Events to teach and speak at the AQC in Melbourne was the trigger. Judy Newman selected a talk about the Tentmakers, and Beutron offered to sponsor an exhibition space. I took two men – a translator to help to sell, and a master stitcher, Ahmed Naguib.

I knew Australians would be blown away by the work and it would sell like hot cakes. I had not expected the changes it brought back to the street in Cairo. Ahmed Naguib talked about how he was received, how people used video, how he was in the newspapers, how women clapped when he finished a flower – and I watched the street start to realise that what they did really mattered in a larger context.

They have now been to seven countries with exhibitions, and sometimes several times to each country.

Hany Abd el Khader, one of my friends in the Tentmakers’ Street made an applique piece to remember the first Egyptian Revolution. That was sold to the Museum of Oriental Art in Durham when we took it there for an exhibition at the University. It has a double historic importance – both far greater than anything I could make. It is work by an Egyptian about an Egyptian event of huge importance, and using a craft which has never been used by its workers for political commentary.

Discuss colour and how you use hand painted fabrics and other techniques to achieve the colour you need in your quilts?

I tend to freshen and brighten colours for many pieces – that is just a matter of personal taste. It also has the effect of drawing attention from the softer greyed quilts around mine in a quilt show – so there is an element of deliberation to my colour choices.

I did a lot of the work when living in Egypt dyeing and painting of fabrics became a necessity. I could get large bolts of cheap white cotton, but never colours that I wanted. It was easier to buy whites and work from that, augmenting with other fabrics from my stash. I mix everything. Working in Ramallah and Iran told me that you use what you can get. Patchwork came from making do with what you had and we have almost forgotten this.

You are a member of tACTile, discuss the importance being a member of this group has been to you personally and professionally?

Working with tACTile has been very important to me. The group are good friends. The others are all so incredibly talented that I often wonder if I really belong there. We have had exhibitions every two years for the last twelve years. In each exhibition we have basically made our own work, but within a broad and elastic theme. There are times when I race towards deadlines swearing I will never do it again, but it has opened doors that would have stayed closed for me as a single quilter.

Discuss the importance that a quilt maker can be in capturing time and place?

I think that a Quiltmaker can be considered an artist in the way of other artists – it is only the medium that is different. Our work has significant advantages as I can fold twenty large quilts into a suitcase and carry them on a plane to an exhibition.

I think pictorial work of the kind I make can freeze a moment. However, decisions like choices of colour and patterning are subject to fashion and can lock the work into an era and that might not be such a good thing. I was looking the other day at advertising with men in bell bottoms and crocheted vests. We were laughing because they truly looked funny. It made wonder if my work will date in the same way.

Your husband’s Diplomatic placements; how have these helped you as a quilt maker?

I would not be a quilt maker if it were not for my husband’s career. When I married Bob I knew that I could not keep on working in electron microscopy. I drifted in the first postings – I taught kindergarten at the American School in Damascus, Syria, had two extra children in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, then started to study with a Palestinian painter in Amman, Jordan - and loved it.

finished a degree in Visual Arts just as my husband left to work with the UN in Gaza. I had done the degree with the intention of taking discreet groups of diplomatic wives into the landscape to learn to paint. I made a couple of quilts – for fun – and followed him to Jerusalem. Then there was a moment of realisation that quilting was simply a medium, that I could do anything with it that I could do with paint.

Textiles feel extraordinary to work with. People reach out to touch textiles and never do that to paint or photography. From the moment we are born we are wrapped in cloth. We step naked from the shower into cloth, we sleep between sheets, and blankets are used for warmth and comfort. There is an immediacy to textiles never found in paint. Colours are richer too as reflections do not usually affect fabric.

Our postings have also supplied me with incredible – sometimes unbelievable life experiences. Some find their way into my work, some I just hug to myself. The travel has supplied subject matter, though I only use places that mean a lot to me, not places I trip through briefly. I think the best art has to come from feelings – not just the idea that something looks pretty.

How has patchwork and quilting helped you when you have had to move to a new posting?

Yes – though there is always a period before the luggage arrives where I use the time to explore and get to know a new country. Moving to a new place can actually be devastating, regardless of how exciting it sounds.

I think we all have so many facets. We show a different side of ourselves to different people. My parents see me in one way, my children are shown another. I am a professional in the workplace with peers, somewhat subservient to my boss, a partner to my husband, and different again with female friends.

When you move – you are suddenly only a mother and wife. I have even been introduced as “The new Brenda Dodsworth” – naming the wife of the officer Bob had just replaced. It is a frightening loss of identity and I think you have to slowly replace each facet, finding people who see you in different ways. With my work I keep another facet throughout, and it gives me a sense of purpose in a brand new country where I am isolated by language, by the fact that I do not know anyone, and to a certain extent by my husband’s high status. He was the Australian Ambassador in the last few posts and an ambassador’s wife loses freedoms just because she is there with the representative of our country. You are never out of that role, regardless of where you go or who you are with. In our first posting with that title – day one – I turned at the checkout in a Jordanian supermarket and picked up my plastic bags of shopping. “No, said the owner. He said, “I have to talk to you.” He lead me to the restaurant part of the supermarket and ordered two coffees.

“In this country you are the wife of an ambassador. If you carry your groceries you are saying your country is rubbish. You can never, never do that here. When you shop you turn and walk out. You will know that your groceries will follow you.”

That was one of the hardest adjustments for an independent Australian to make – but during the next few years I heard enough gossip from Arab friends to know that I had been given great advice.

Recently you have had issues with copyright, please explain what you have learnt about this aspect of artistic ownership?

Recently you have had issues with copyright, please explain what you have learnt about this aspect of artistic ownership?

I did so little. One of the quilts I had made back in 2002 was a traditional style of quilt. I had been in Singapore and a friend and I had shared a pile of sarongs which we cut up and divided. The front panel – or my half – of each sarong was so lovely that I did not want to cut it smaller. I designed a way to use triangles to make the pieces shimmer – and it helped quite unrelated prints to sit comfortably together.

A few years later I repeated the quilt in another lot of fabrics and it was so popular that I started to teach it as a class. Then I made two more. By this stage people were starting to copy it.

I was a bit miffed, as it looked traditional but it was not a known traditional block. People started to ask for patterns and I started – slowly and through chemo, to put a pattern together. A friend, Cassandra Philpot, spent several days with me taking process photographs to use in the pattern.

I never make patterns. Everything I teach is aimed at moving away from dependence on others’ designs, and making original work, so this was a very different path.

I negotiated with an Australian company to print it and do the distribution. And waited. Five months.

Then someone on a Facebook list posted the quilt they had made in a Shimmering Triangles class! I contacted the teacher and pointed out that she could not teach my design and my class without permission. She was nice – used the excuse that there was no pattern so she ‘had to write her own,’ but happily agreed to have her students buy mine in future.

Within two weeks I had withdrawn the pattern from the slow publisher, given copies to a group going on a quilting retreat who promised to test it, and after a few tweaks that they suggested I slammed it up on an internet selling site for crafts as a downloadable pdf file.

Then the real drama started.

A shop announced its BOM. This is a Block of the Month. Sales of these are almost infinite. Each month everyone who signs up gets a pack of fabric and instructions for that one section. By the end of eight months – or five or how long it takes – they have the whole quilt made. The shop can make a huge amount of money from this. They did not use my pattern – they cited my name and the fact that the first one was made in 2002 but said they had designed their own pattern from a Pinterest board.

I wrote a polite letter pointing out that this was a breach of copyright. No answer. I waited a month. Then the second advertising letter came out and they had removed my name and credit.

At this point I write a letter saying I was organising a Cease and Desist letter form a lawyer. I located a lawyer in the lady’s hometown and wrote to them.

I told two marvelous internet groups what was happening and they pulled in hard behind me. QuiltArt and SAQA are both offshoot chat lists for professional organisations – one from Quilts Inc in America, the other an international organisation centred in America called Studio Art Quilt Associates.

I named and shamed, but somewhat reluctantly as I was afraid of possible repercussions. Because they offered, I asked my friends to write a note or put a comment on the shop’s blog or Facebook page. Interestingly – Australia was blocked from the shop’s Facebook page. I asked people to stay cool, professional and accurate, and not to risk exaggeration or name-calling.

At the end of twenty four hours I stopped them as I was feeling sorry for the shop. I know they had hundreds of emails and comments and the owner had spent most of the day taking them off her blog as they appeared. Within half an hour of my stopping the emails the BOM was withdrawn with an apologetic note saying the maker did not realise that she could not draw her own pattern for an original quilt.

The internet really has incredible power. I was able to stop the lawyer letter before they had taken the top of the pen, and this did not cost me anything.

As a nice bonus – the pattern has been surprisingly successful – but that is another story!

Contact details.

Jenny Bowker

Email jenny.bowker@gmail.com

Website www.jennybowker.com

tACTile website http://www.tactilequilts.net/

Blurb book, Pack and Follow http://au.blurb.com/b/2578726-pack-and-follow

Pattern for Shimmering Triangles:

http://www.craftsy.com/pattern/quilting/home-decor/shimmering-triangles/122321

Jenny Bowker, Canberra, Australia

Interview by Deborah Blakeley, March, 2015

by Deborah Blakeley

Amy Nguyen

Please comment on your relationship with Mary Edna Fraser and where it has led you?

Mary Edna Fraser and I connected after I graduated from college. I had decided to stay in Charleston SC to work and was custom sewing for a local company. Mary Edna Fraser needed someone to sew her hand-dyed fabric into dresses for her daughters for a special occasion. I was inspired by her beautiful batiks after visiting her studio. When she visited my small studio and saw my paintings, she posed the question of putting my artwork onto fabric. I loved colour and creating on a blank surface and had grown up around textiles, so the idea was a terrific fusion of both. She planted some important seeds in my head that year and I am forever grateful to her.

I’ve seen Mary Edna Fraser just a few times since leaving Charleston. We connected at the Peabody Essex Museum, north of Boston, in conjunction with the World Batik Conference. At that time, she gave one of the best piece of advice: always do something new, no matter how small a change. I do try to practice this often. Slight changes keep me from becoming stagnant in my work.

Discuss the importance of shibori in both your early and current work?

In the beginning, shibori was the primary focus of my work. I experimented with a wide range of mark-making and colour-mixing. Now, my work is a balance of shibori and subtle textural components through stitch. The complexity in the work continues to grow. My stitching adds a layer of dimension to each piece. I will always enjoy shibori mark-making, but I will likely always enjoy, even more, the challenge of taking that traditional surface down a different path.

Do you still take Jason Pollen’s advice, to carve out a small bit of time each day to experiment with no outcome in mind?

I really try to. Sometimes I’m not able to carve out as much time as I’d like. The business end of the arts can take an enormous amount of time with all the moving parts. But, I certainly appreciate the importance of carving out time to experiment and I come back to it as often as I’m able. I find it is always a good way to center myself when I don’t know where to begin.

Where has one of these small pieces of time lead?

These small experimentations have ended up in my sample books, to which I often refer. Each one leads to a slightly different textural technique. If I end up with a lot of the same grouping, or pieces that work together, I will use those pieces in a one-of-a-kind garment. Every thread is precious. I recently sold a one-of-a-kind coat to a favourite collector and she exclaimed, as we were admiring the piece, that it felt old and special. She had sensed the age of the fabric behind it. She sensed the soul of the piece. I suppose when you think of this question on that level, one could realize the collective importance of small things.

You work with a very limited palette, can you discuss this?

My early work was all over the place. It was not developed. I was beginning. In many ways, I feel like I stopped and went back to square one with black and white. I started to create shibori using a very limited palette. This allowed me to further develop my techniques, as limiting materials allows for more creativity in my artistic development.

I’ve always loved black and white, the contrast, the dimensionality, the tension between both. I go through periods where I love colour, but I often come back to black and white. While living in Boston I will always remember some time spent with Saundra Lane and her collection of black and white photography. Adams, Stieglitz and Weston pushed boundaries with only black and white. There is much to explore with everything and with nothing which these two opposing “colours” represent.

Explain your own shibori method of second layering?

Second layering is not part of the shibori dyeing process. I suppose it’s more abstract. It is my second part of process, or layering of process, when I deconstruct and remake the shibori by piecing, layering, tearing, or other methods of fabric manipulation. The dyed cloth is so beautiful on its own, but I find this compulsion to add weight, to make the fabric feel more grounded and to put my own mark on it. Thread is that weight. Stitching helps the piece to feel real.

What base fabrics do you use?

I love all natural fabrics. Mostly I use linen, silk, cotton and wool. When I first began creating shibori, I used man-made fabrics that could be heat-set to change the structure of the fabric. I don’t mind using man-made fabrics if they are recycled or repurposed, though the hand of natural fabrics is what I love most

Can you discuss the blending and balancing of the artistic, spiritual and physical in your work?

When I am deep into a day of dyeing and sewing, the process is very physical and repetitive and this allows me to meditate. I have recently started to practice tai chi and I find I am most focused after a class. I often find myself back in the studio. When my head is clear, artistic inspiration can spring up from doing the most basic daily things. Artistic, spiritual and physical all can become one in a moment of flow. Or, they can at least influence each other. There is a balance that must exist in order for me to create.

Explain your thoughts on keeping age old textile traditions within modern fashion?

I believe we have a need to retain tradition, pride in our community and our history. Modern fashion must exist as well, but with careful consideration of its effects on the environment. There should be a balance of old and new. For example, my dye techniques are by hand. Some of my stitching techniques are by machine. We are small-scale and care about every piece. It shows.

I don’t agree with disposable fashion. We have become a society of much waste and fast-paced consumption that is affecting the earth. I like the idea of having few pieces, well-made that express who you are. I certainly recognize that items like socks, underwear, leggings, basic black clothing need to be affordable. These items can be mass-produced as long as the company that is producing them stands behind protection of the environment, sustainable practice, and fair pay. As consumers, we should be asking where things were made, how they were made, who made them? In order to keep some of the old tradition, we can ask these questions of designers and support those who work the most fairly. We can support local stores. We can support smaller stores. And when we buy those particular pieces to express who we are, I think we should buy less of them…and really cherish what we have.

You emphasise the importance of handmade in your work. Why is this such a major part of your textiles and finished garments?

I’ll never forget the collector who recognized the soul in the coat I’d made – who sensed there was older fabric in the piece. Part of the cloth that went into that particular piece was from my mother’s stash of sewing fabrics. It was a beautiful silk/linen ivory cloth intended to be a suit she had wanted to make but never got around to making. This was a special moment for me – to have someone truly understand the soul of a piece. That is also why part of my work is handmade. There is an inexplicable soul in anything made by hand. I firmly believe in this. It is in direct opposition to fast consumption. We slow down – not just those making it, but those wearing the pieces as well.

Explain your interpretation of ‘Slow Textiles Movement’?

Slow movements, in general, represent a cultural shift towards slowing down the pace. The slow food movement has gained considerable momentum and now, I believe, slow fashion is following. We should know where our food comes from and how it was handled. We should know who makes our clothing and where it comes from. It really is just about being more present and more aware of the world that surrounds us. This is the main premise behind the slow textiles movement. I’m also paying attention to how we work in the studio, what I pay my interns, what we recycle and, most importantly, the quality that is going to a collector.

There is another layer to this for my work. Many of the pieces that we create are considered wearable art. Additionally, they involve an aspect of art, of craft and of fashion. These pieces have emotion behind them, they are made up of highly skilled technical craft and they are relevant today. Adding all of these additional layers creates pieces that are true works of art. They are authentic and people deserve this.

Couture is a word that we relate to high fashion. Your work has that very high finish. Can you discuss the importance of this?

Many processes, technical skill and collaborative work are all certainly a part of the pieces created here in the studio. The same could be said of couture. We have 4 different aspects of process and each one is of equal importance. First, the creation of the surface design work – the dyeing of the cloth. Next, the fabric manipulation and intricate stitching of the cloth. Third, the patternmaking of the garment shapes – turning two-dimensional into three-dimensional. And last, the finishing or very detailed final touches. Couture pieces are a true reflection of the artist. I feel each piece made should be both a true reflection of myself as well as of my respect for the craft and history behind each aspect of process.

The photography of your work is beautiful. Can you explain how you achieve such wonderful images?

In the beginning, my husband and I took our own photographs, which were flat and lacking in dimensionality. After viewing numerous headless shots with mediocre lighting, I came to the realization that we needed to collaborate with professionals who understood the emotions I was trying convey. I strive to create masterful work in the studio. Each person with whom I collaborate is doing the same in their own field. When great collaboration happens, it’s because the ego disappears and each person understands their role and yet has respect for each other. This ensures that each photograph evokes the feeling that existed in the creation of the piece. My goal is to seek the best in every aspect of what we create and to know that I cannot do it all. I’m not the photographer or the artistic director or the stylist, yet we all have a similar vision. In that room, I am only the artist/designer, one part of the whole.

Do you design seasonally? How do you add to the collection?

I add to the collection as process develops or changes or if something inspires me. I don’t create collections such as fall, resort and spring. Most of my pieces can be worn at least three seasons in different ways. That’s what I like in my own clothing. I find the less clothing I own, the better I feel. When I update a piece in my own wardrobe, another piece gets donated. I find it’s best to have pieces that work well and can be worn often that are loved each time they’re worn. When we love our clothing, we possess a wonderful energy. I care more about creating the garment with thought and care then making sure I have a collection available on a particular date. Each season does influence us some and I always offer some aspect of work that makes sense within the season. I love linen, for example. People say it’s only for summer. What about quilted linen?

What is one basic garment you would not be without?

A wrap (which can become a garment). I use one in the summer, in the winter crinkled and bunched as a scarf and during meditation.

Contact details.

amynguyentextiles@gmail.com

www.amynguyentextiles.com

Amy Nguyen, Boston, MA, USA

Interview by Deborah Blakeley, October, 2014

by Deborah Blakeley

Alex Friedman

You have a BA, Art History / Fine Art degree. How has this influenced your tapestry? What was your artistic background?

As a child I loved to draw. I spent hours drawing imaginary places and animals but, quite practically, I also made a number of floor plans for houses I would like to live in!

I studied both Art History and Fine Arts as I found each field offered insights into the other. Both sides of my brain were stimulated by the offerings and I learned to look at art from many different cultures over the centuries to understand why they looked the way they did. My final year I had a class that examined architectural history and this rekindled my childhood interest in buildings.

After my formal education I considered architecture school but decided first to find a job in the field to learn more about it. I was hired as a librarian in a medium sized firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to catalogue building codes, blueprints, and archive boxes of building samples from the different projects. (This included door knobs, glass and brick samples, colour chips and a large range of assorted elements that could fit in the box(es), amusing work for a librarian!) I also built scale models and did some interior design. It was a very varied job that I liked after a few years I realised that I wanted less administration more hands-on creative opportunities.

I was encouraged by friends to take an evening weaving class at the YWCA. Three six-week classes of beginning weaving convinced me I had found a new direction. I loved the handwork, the vast array of colours, the planning the possibilities. I was fascinated by the endless patterns, the magic of it all. Still no sign of tapestries on my horizon but that came the following year.

Your initial introduction to tapestry was at Michelle Lester’s Studio, working on a large commission for jumbo jets. Can you discuss this introduction and how it has inspired you?

In 1973 I moved to New York City and joined a local guild to meet weavers and find a weaving job. The fates were smiling because soon after I was hired by Michelle Lester (1942-2002) to weave tapestries for a new fleet of 747s. Michelle, who had a weaving studio in the Garment District of New York City, also had a connection with a gallery that secured this very large airline commission. I had not yet woven a tapestry but I must have seemed very self-assured and willing to learn because I was hired on the spot!

I must backtrack here to say that the only tapestry I had seen to this point was a dreary verdure that belonged to my great aunt. As a child I remember thinking it was an ugly thing to hang on a wall. My slow to arrive tapestry epiphany came when I subsequently realised that tapestries could be colourful, dynamic and they did not have be mural size.

Eventually four weavers were hired to work on this project. Each jet plane was to have 6 tapestries on it; two to cover the movie screens and four to make up the first class cabin bulkhead that included two closet doors in the centre, and the fuselage shaped panels on either side.

The project took over 18 months and was well paid. The tapestries were not complex in design but they did have to be carefully woven to fit the shaped patterns they were to fill. They were repetitive and there were regular deadlines to meet. To keep it interesting, we would each weave six of one of the panels and then switch and weave six of another. By weaving the same ones over we got much faster and could anticipate where problems would arise. For example, one of the screen covers took me about three plus weeks the first time I wove it. In the end I could weave it in 5 days because I was so familiar with it, I realised that much of the time saved was all about the decision making. Doing a repeated project would seem to be boring but in fact each time the weaving developed a personality and, like children, they were a little different each time. Altogether we made an edition of 37 sets for 36 planes. There was an extra set in case one series needed to be cleaned or repaired.

This was my first trial by fire tapestry experience. After this experience I continued to work for her on other smaller commissions. She gave little tutoring in tapestry technique but I enjoyed problem solving and discovered many tricks of the trade. I recognised that I needed more direction and over the early years took workshops from many other noted artists.

Can you explain what the construction aspects are that make a work tapestry?

Unlike painting, to which tapestry is so often compared, the construction of a tapestry requires one to make the art and the structure for the art simultaneously. As a medium it is very simple as there are only two main elements; the warp which is kept under tension and provides the skeleton, and the weft which lies perpendicular to the warp and becomes the body of the tapestry design.

Tapestries are often described as ‘weft faced’ meaning the warp is not visible. Compare with most fabrics, sheets, jeans, oxford shirts, in which there is a balanced weave where both warp and weft are visible. The options for the weft are wide open. Artists have used wool, silk, cotton, as well as feathers, wire, synthetics, grass, newspaper, etc. I use wool, cotton and/or silk mainly because tapestries take a long time to weave and I consider the archival aspects in choosing materials since it is a big investment of my time.

To begin, the warp is threaded on the loom. Once it is checked over for correct threading, tension is added to make it ready for weaving. With a temporary weft I make a foundation that serves to spread the warp from the small knotted bundles into a properly spaced warp.

Wefts are generally woven in one at a time in a specific area according to the design. I will weave a few inches of a colour area and then start a new colour and weave a section slowly building up the design. In the image here, I began at the lower right with the dark yellow.

The next weft is the one to the left, a striped blue which leans on the yellow, and so forth across the hemline. Unlike machine looms you may have seen, where the weft travels levelly from one selvage to the other, in tapestry, areas of one colour can be built up the warp so the next colour can be woven over it. The design will dictate the order in which colours are laid in because of this.

Another difference is that there are marks you can make in tapestry that are unique to the medium. This includes certain kinds of patterns that would be tedious for a painter but easy for a weaver. Archie Brennan, from whom I have had several workshops, often, spoke about this to his students. It is something that I strongly considered when I started working with more dimension, that is that tapestry should be more about ‘textileness.’

Your work goes beyond 2D. Expand on the possibilities this has lead you to?

Some of the rules of traditional tapestry include keeping your edges straight and your surface flat and controlled. While this is important to learn at the outset, I was restless to experiment.

For me making a tapestry is a construction project. One starts at the foundation building up the shapes layer by layer. Because of this “construction” mode I wanted to create more dimension.

Initially I started with manipulating the tapestry elements. I did a small series called the Flip Series. It was about ten small pieces in which I constructed the elements that I subsequently manipulated.

I considered them studies for large scale pieces but in the end did not pursue because I was concerned that over time the 3D elements would sag and I did not want to add armatures to support them. These were quite successful at this scale and I went on to explore more dimensional work.

I began working with an eccentric weft; for non-weavers, it is a weft element that is woven at an angle rather than the traditional weft which is 90 degrees to the warp. I began to have some interesting surprises.

These eccentric wefts were made in bands and went right across the tapestry. It was an interesting design but when I cut it from the loom the whole surface changed character and developed a new possibility.

I have made a series of Flows in both large and small-scale format. I am intrigued how they enhance the image and create a more sculptural aspect in tapestry.

You have made the comment, “I have experimented to see what happens when the boundaries are pushed.” Discuss?

I have been working with these eccentric areas for almost 10 years and I have learned many of the quirks. There is a degree in the angle of the weft where the weaving looses its textile integrity and the tapestry fails but this is all part of the exploration. When it is successfully used the eccentric areas pop up after it is cut from the loom creating a dynamic surface tension. This is because of the release from the tension on the loom. I have made enough to know what to expect but sometimes I am surprised.

We have long seen tapestries in a 2D format that tell a narrative or explore traditional line, colour, shape, tone, and volume themes. I think that is limits what tapestry can offer.

Discuss the feeling of movement in your ‘Flow Series’?

All this movement takes tapestry from being a flat narrative format into a different way of thinking about the medium. Textiles are inherently fluid; they drape, they flex, they respond to their environment and by recognizing that possibility in a tapestry they offer more for the view to consider.

I want to respect the tapestry tradition but at the same time move away from the long narrative role it has played in our western culture. I am happy to celebrate its “textileness.”

Discuss nature and how it inspires your work?

How can one not be inspired by nature? I walk a lot and all my life have been observant of my environment.

That may come from my mother who was a scientist. She gave me a microscope as a child and we looked at lots of dead bugs, flower pods, and many other organic materials. For those who have looked it is a fascinating world. I find the shapes and colours provide me with a lot of ideas for my art and they become indirect interpretations ideas and need some time to evolve.

Along with your contemporary work you do pieces that you refer to as ‘Representational Tapestries’. Can you explain both aspects of your work?

My representational pieces are from an earlier part of my career. 1990- 2005. They generally included a lot of architectural details such as stairs, windows, entry ways. I worked from memory and incorporated shadows which gave the tapestries a tromp l’oeil feel to them.

Once a man saw a photograph of me sitting in front of my tapestry of a staircase at a beach house. He asked if it was my summer cabin. I replied, “Yes, but it is only a centimetre thick!”

What yarn do your work with and why?

I am currently working with three strands of Paterna, a fine plied wool in most of my tapestries. With three strands I can blend a new colour and make subtle colour transitions. I was very lucky that another tapestry weaver was closing her studio and selling off her huge collection of yarn.

I usually can make the colour effect I want from the yarns I have on hand but from time to time I need to dye a colour. I love this process because it is so magical and honestly, quite addictive.

Discuss the dyeing of your yarn and also the availability of commercial yarns?

I really enjoy dying yarn but do it infrequently because Paterna has a very wide range of colour. Yet there is always a colour in my mind’s eye that I need and I am usually able to dye it. For my last projects I have space dyed some of the yarn to get a special effect in my work.

How do you hang your work?

After I hem my tapestries top and bottom, I line them so that the backs are neat and clean. I attach the loop side of a Velcro strip across the top and I make a lathe strip with the matching hook side Velcro. The lathe is attached to the wall and the tapestry is then attached to the lathe. Because they are flexible, tapestries can also be hung on curved walls and I use a similar method in that case. In some cases with pieces that have shaped tops, I will add a flexible plastic section to maintain the erectness.

Size, what restrictions do you have to the size of your work?

I work in both large and small formats. I have an 8 foot (2.5m) Shannock loom which gives me lots of possibilities for size. I also have a six foot Regina Glimakra rug loom that I use for smaller projects. And I have used smaller, travel size copper looms for mini projects. Overall, I most enjoy being absorbed in a large format tapestry on the Shannock loom.

Can you show and tell us about your studio?

I share a large studio in an industrial building just north of San Francisco. There are over 50 studios which means an environment of many creative people. There are two Open Studios a year and this is an opportunity to teach visitors about tapestry.

You teach, where and when do you fit this into your timetable?

I teach irregularly both in my studio space and outside venues mostly when I am invited. I enjoy it and think I should do it more often but I find it hard to pull away from my projects. Teaching is always a great way to really think about your own art. It helps to me to distil all the thoughts that are brewing in my mind.

Can you discuss one piece that you have done that has been sold and how this sale then effected you both as an artist and in your artistic career?

When my youngest child started kindergarten I decided to rent some studio space for a three year stint to see if I could make a go of it. I was designing colourful abstract tapestries which received some success. I was feeling impatient with the random expression of my abstractions and decided to challenge myself to make a realistic interpretation of a porch scene. Again going back to my architectural interest I looked at a lot of sketches and photos and came up with a design.

Three weeks after I completed this piece it sold. I decided to make more of these realistic pieces and this attracted many clients for whom I did private commissions.

Champlain Valley was a commission for a house in Vermont. The client asked for many things to be included in the tapestry. Like many commissions there is a lot of back and forth until there is an agreement. It worked out well and we were both pleased with the end result. It was very satisfying to do something I love and make people happy at the same time. A treat.

As well as your own tapestry work, you are involved in ATA – American Tapestry Alliance. Can you explain the importance of ATA to tapestry and your own work?

I was very involved with the ATA for many years. When my children left for college I had some more time and was asked to be a co-director of ATA in 2000. Earlier the alliance had begun to lose its way and a few members had taken it on themselves to put together a whole new organizational plan that refocused the needs of the membership and how ATA could be more supportive.

Without realising the scope of what I was volunteering for, I signed up as a Director. I was living in London at the time and most of the volunteers were in the US so there was an avalanche of emails. We needed new chairs for the different jobs including a new co director and the organization had to adapt to digital format.

It was hard work and very left brained but I was constantly impressed how much time and energy the volunteers gave especially since we hardly knew each other. It was very exciting to see the changes appear and to see ATA start growing from the 200 members at the time. I wanted to see more international members and that too has significant growth.

I was active on the board until 2008. I have not been so active in recent years but do volunteer on smaller projects when I can. I am more active with a smaller local group, the Tapestry Weavers West that puts on regular exhibits and supports tapestry education.

Discuss your comment ‘…tapestry has the power to bring peace and harmony into any space.’?

From my studio experience I like to watch people enter and start looking at my tapestries on the wall. There is a sort of calm that comes over them. I am not sure how to explain this but I do think people have an inherent love of textiles, they never go a day without contact to some form of cloth. The softness and the colour may seem comfortable and welcoming to them than the hard edged world we are surrounded by.

Contact details.

Alex Friedman Tapestries

www.alexfriedmantapestry.com

Alex Friedman, California, USA

Interview by Deborah Blakeley, August, 2014

by Deborah Blakeley

Martha Fieber

You call your work, ‘Landscapes in Thread’. Can you discuss this?

My work is all landscapes. Some are realistic and some abstract. By far, the majority of materials used in my finished image is thread. I use hand dyed linen for backgrounds and the entire picture is made from thread of all kinds. I use some hand dyed silk and ribbon yarn for the tree trunks. The underlying message threaded through my work is that nothing is quite what it appears.

You use layers and layers of thread, while restricting your work to four stitches. Can you expand on this?

I use straight stitches, french knots, couched threads, and chain stitch. Straight stitches and french knots make up most of each image. Occasionally I will use chain stitch for a different texture or level separation in the picture. I have not used couching in some time, but there is the occasion that it makes a perfect line definition that I need for effect. The straight stitch and knot can do so many things. Straight stitches are like drawing with a pen or pencil. French knots are so versatile. They can have any number of twists to make their size. They can be piled upon each other for texture and dimension. I love using them and find myself going to them as a basic.

Texture plays a large part in your work. Please explain the technique you use to create you work?

I start with linen that I have hand dyed. It adds dimension and colour variation to the background and lends to the depth of the finished image. If the piece is to be a forest scene, I then start with crosshatched straight stitching to give the depth and interest to the background. I continue layering slightly variegated colour thread while adding silk or cotton trees and branches. At the same time I am adding french knot leaves and more cross hatching until I have a deep background with dimension and texture. 90% of my images I consider background. Only when I am adding the foreground trees and leaves, do I have my finished picture. I try to get all of the depth into the background from the start since I cannot go back under to add more later. I am thinking like a painter, going from distance to foreground. Lots of my stitches get covered up, but there is always a little of everything peeking thru on the finished piece. Using hand dyed silk ribbon for dimensional leaves in the foreground adds depth, texture, and dimension to my work.

What lead you to give up a career in engineering for art in 1999?

After twenty years in engineering, I needed a change. I had been doing my embroidery and rug hooking as hobbies during that time. I found working within the parameters of the engineering world frustrating and longed to work for myself in the art world. My husband is a furniture maker we felt that we were in a good position to make a change to full time artists as all of the children were then out of college. We decided to take the big leap to working for ourselves in 1999. It took a few years to get established, but things have worked out well for both of us.

Can you discuss composition by comparing ‘Catching Light’ and ‘Dogwood Spring’?

From a distance, it is impossible to tell how my work is constructed and what materials I am using, so composition is what draws the viewer to get close to my work and experience its complexity.

“Dogwood Spring” and “Catching Light” are two very different pieces. Both take your eye into the distant woods, but one is a fine, misty, mysterious, light, distance and the other is close up bright forefront and deep dark distance.

“Dogwood Spring” draws the viewer to the lighter distance using bright green grasses on the horizon from a shaded grassy and tree area with blossom foremost. Grey greens in varying shades make the long boundless distance disappear. This piece is matted which is a contrast to the open area of the undefined distance.

“Catching Light” uses bright red, white, and muted greens in the foreground and draws the eye to the dark enclosed distance. The edge treatment on this piece is stitched. That gives a dark border and is shadow box mounted to give contrast to dark distance and it makes the entire piece pop.

Your inspiration is nature. Can you explain this in relation to your work?

Nature is beautiful and peaceful to me. My work strives to bring the outdoors in and keep us connected to our world. I also want to remain aware of our fragile environment. The scale and exquisite quality of my work brings that to mind. I want to keep the viewer aware of the beauty of the moment. I live in the woods so I am surrounded by beautiful scenery every day and show it to the viewer in my work.

Explain the size of your pieces?

My pieces are small. They start at 3” x 5” for the image. My largest has been 9” x 30”. I use the horizontal format because it is easiest to work with. Vertical format is cumbersome for me. I like to work with a size I can hold instead of using a stand. Time is also a factor. My work takes a long time and anything larger than the above sizes would take too long to complete. Scale is also a factor in the size I work with. I do my best work in small scale. Materials that I use, like using only one strand of thread at a time, makes my work small scale to start.

You do your own dyeing and hand painting of thread, as well as commercial threads. Can you discuss this aspect of your work?

I dye my linens, threads, silk fabrics, and ribbons with water based dyes and set the colour in the microwave. It is so quick. I do not use specific formulas for colour. I just mess around some colours that I know will work for either trees, grasses, leaves, etc. I do get some ugly colours at times, but they end up being perfect for something later on, like mud coloured thread. I buy bulk linen and ribbon and dye big batches of pieces to use later. I look for threads at the thrift stores and overdye them. Sometimes I buy bulk threads and dye them. Dying my own gives me more natural colours and more subtly variegated materials. They blend together more naturally and easily than using solid colours. When I start a picture, I go to my stash and pick out the colours that will work best for the piece I have in mind.

Do you feel that being a self-taught embroiderer has allowed you to have a greater scope?

Yes, I think that being self-taught has allowed me do go my own direction and use unconventional techniques while at the same time using conventional stitches in a traditional craft. I am not restricted by perfect spacing, perfect stitches, colour combination charts, or the neatness of the back of my work. The backs of my works are abstract versions of the fronts. I put stitches anywhere, in any combinations, whenever I desire. My process is so slow that I can change at any time or go in another direction that works better for the composition. I am not working toward a specifically defined finished pattern, I do have a finished image in mind before I start.

Can you discuss ‘Spring Birch’

‘Spring Birch’ has many examples of techniques I use.

This piece starts with hand dyed linen in grey blues. Next I paint the distant hills with water based, heat set, ink. Then straight stitch grey blues in darker shades make up the near distant hills. Then, lightening up the nearer hills in straight stitch grey blues. I am then using a straight stitch to make different size and distant pines. At this point I start to put in some grasses and bushy areas. Next, the birch trees are put in using white cotton gima inked to look like birches. The high birch branches are next. Last is the leafy front bushes and enhancing the french knot leaves of the bushes before and behind the birches. I am sewing in all of the foreground grasses, bushes, and leaves during the last few steps.

This piece has a bright, dramatic foreground of birches and leaves as the focal point, then leads the eye to the distance with darker colours, greyed shades, different weight threads, and different material threads. Cotton and silk give either flat or sheen to the area which works to separate and define. Since I work close up, I am constantly putting the piece at a distance so that I can gauge composition.

This piece is 6” x 14”. It is presented matted, in a black simple frame that is 12” x 20”.

Contrast and colour can be inspiration to me. I used a birch stand near a local lake as a reference. As you can see, I changed the lake to distant hills.

Your work comes in three categories. Please expand on this?

I have found that my technique lends itself to forests, fields, and flowers. I do have water scenes, close up forest floor scenes, and abstract scenes, but most of those subjects are still in development stages.

Forest

Crosshatched stitching lends itself to making the woods look deep and to making trees recede into the background. My hand dyed silk fabrics make really good tree trunks. I also paint birch tree trunks. So, materials define a good portion of my works.

Fields

Using one strand of thread at a time and stitching in both directions makes realistic looking fields and makes the grasses separate. There are so many new materials to stitch with, like gima, novelty thread, different weights and sheens of threads, different twists, ribbons, that can add dimension and depth to my work and lend themselves to varied grasses.

Flowers

French Knots make good flowers. Silk Ribbon can also make a different type of flower. Flowers add colour. They add another dimension and contrast to my pieces. This is another example of colour and texture of the materials determining my subjects.

How has your combined knowledge of weaving and embroidery helped the current work you are doing?

My combined knowledge of weaving and embroidery probably helps the most in colour combining and layers. I’d say that my embroidery experience with different materials influences my weaving more than the other way around

Contact details.

marthafieber@yahoo.com

www.marthafieber.com

Martha Fieber, Michigan, USA

Interview by Deborah Blakeley, July, 2014

by Deborah Blakeley

Barbara Heller

Explain how you personally have promoted tapestry both locally and internationally?

The most visible way I promote tapestry is by weaving in the corner window of my studio on Granville Island, an area of Vancouver that many tourists and locals visit daily. For 5 hours a day the studio is open to the public and I and my partners meet and educate people (and sell our work).

After teaching myself tapestry in the 1970’s and weaving and exhibiting for a number of years, I ventured out to take a master class in California and to connect with other tapestry weavers at conferences and symposia. In 1992, I was one of five Canadians to be invited to an international event in Poland and was asked to give a slide lecture about Canadian tapestry. The contacts I made through finding artists in every province and soliciting slides of their work led to an informal newsletter and then to the Canadian Tapestry Network newsletter which is published three times a year.

At the Polish conference someone wondered aloud how we could meet again soon and I, not knowing what was in store for me, said I would put on an event in Vancouver the next year. That resulted in Making a Place for Tapestry, several exhibitions, and a book. I do believe that if you want something to happen, you should just plunge in and make it happen.

Also locally, I founded the British Columbia Society of Tapestry Artists (BCStars) a non-profit to support the art of tapestry through lectures and exhibits. Our first project was a large community tapestry woven at the main library in downtown Vancouver and then donated to the Aids Centre.

I have been a member of the [North] American Tapestry Alliance for many, many years and have served on their board and, more recently, as their Distance Learning (mentoring) chair. As tapestry is not a common vocation, the passionate weavers around the world have found each other and formed what my husband calls the ‘tapestry mafia’ – I can travel almost anywhere around the world and find another tapestry weaver to connect with.

Explain briefly the technique you use for your tapestries. Beginning with the cartoon to the final cut off?

For me, the image is always paramount and the method serves the image. I usually work from my own photos, often collaging images together to support the message and emotional impact I am looking for. I then project the images on the wall at a relatively small scale (say 18”x24”) and work out the basics, making many drawings. When I am satisfied, I have the drawing blown up to final size and re-draw to make it weavable. This is the cartoon that goes behind my loom. I know a computer can be used to do much of this but I think that drawing and re-drawing allows me time to know the cartoon intimately before I start to weave.

I weave on a high-warp 6’ loom with linen warp at 8epi though I may weave areas at 4epi to use my hand spun yarns for texture. I hand-dye the majority of my weft yarns because colour is so important to me. I mark my cartoon with the values (light to dark) of the various areas but choose my colours from the wool, not by painting the cartoon beforehand. It can take months and months to weave a large tapestry and intuitively choosing colours keeps me interested and engaged. Thus, I often have to stop to dye a new colour. I believe in serendipity and the unusual solution.

Weaving a tapestry is like building a brick wall. You start at the bottom and weave decreasing shapes one area at a time until you reach the top. That is, if all goes smoothly - and it rarely does. I sometimes have to reweave an area after I progress up several inches as my original idea or colour choices do not work in context.

When the top hem is woven, the tapestry is cut from the loom and left to rest for a few days. Then there is still much finishing work to do and, as I regard my work as woven paintings, I also stretch and frame them.

Size, explain the size of your work and why?

Originally tapestries were mural art to warm cold castle walls or educate the public in church, like stained glass windows. I have done some very large commissions for public buildings but now only weave tapestries up to the 6’ my loom allows. That said, it is the image that is important and some need to be small (12”x12”) and some need to be mid-sized.

Expand on your comparisons with tapestry and computers within a historical perspective. Up/down - On/off - Punch cards

The ‘Future Reliquary’ Series deals with three apparently separate but, in my mind, connected histories: weaving, computing, and religion.

Weaving is a binary system of up/down, just as computing is a binary system of on/off. The first computer was a jacquard loom complete with punch cards instructing the loom to raise or lower warp threads depending on the position of the holes in the cards. The most intricate and expensive brocades could be woven cheaper and faster by machine following a binary code. Weaving was now one step removed from the human hand. Today’s computers are merely fast jacquard looms programmed in binary code, thinking is now one step removed from the human mind.

Religion is not only a story of faith, it is a story of history and social values. In the middle ages, the sale of shards of the bones of saints and pieces of the True Cross became a large commercial enterprise. These holy relics were housed in beautifully sculpted metal reliquaries and displayed in churches to be worshipped as the concrete symbols of faith and history. I am particularly fascinated by the reliquaries that hold the arm bones of saints, shaped like a hand and arm, usually in gold and often encrusted with jewels.

Today, we are creating a new religion, worshipping the technology we have created. Some years ago, I bought a new computer and wanted to recycle the old one, not just throw it in the garbage. Recycling depots for e-waste were not yet in existence, so I took the computer apart to at least recycle the plastic shell. What treasures were revealed within! I took apart a keyboard. I took apart a radio, then a mobile phone, a CD player. I saved the innards, the future relics of the saints of the connected society.

These tapestries depict the future holy status of today’s e-junk in the context of the ancient fabrics that gave birth to the binary system. In these tapestries, one code of up/down (weaving) morphs into the other code of on/off (computing). The pattern of the mother board or silicon chip morphs into the pattern of a traditional ethnic textile - contemporary computer parts as the concrete symbols of the birth of a religion. And the slits in the woven arm as the receptacles connecting the computer tower to the outer world.

Ethnic textiles are still woven all over the world by hand. No machines intervene as the weavers record their personal stories, their faith, and their culture in the patterned cloth. Complex stories are told in simple binary form.

Discuss the importance of location in your work? (using ‘Habibi’)

Location is very important in my work. The right colours, time of day, part of the world – it must all work together to support the message, the subject of the tapestry.

‘Habibi’ came from photos taken on a trip to Egypt and was part of a projected series of works about children displaced by war (but I only wove two). This young toddler (apparently unaffected by the violence and poverty around him) gazes out at the world while the mother turns away. A gun rests casually against the doorpost and a colourful carriage passes by. What will this child’s future be? Will he rise out of the poverty of his home? Will he grow to be a soldier? Will he travel to a new life? An exotic locale gives us the distance to contemplate these questions, but they apply to everyone everywhere.

Can you discuss your statement, “My themes are becoming more demanding and as the news becomes more depressing, my tapestries are becoming more explicit.”

When I started weaving, my messages were more subtle, hidden within the beauty of the yarn and the images. But since the millennium, as I view the state of the world and become increasingly upset by what I see, my work is more confrontational – dead birds, land mines, plastic pollution, the degradation of the environment. I want to make people stop and think about what they are doing, and perhaps to seek a new way to live in harmony with each other and the earth.

Expand on your use of dead birds and their symbolism in your work?

I have incorporated dead birds in many of my tapestries as a personal icon representing senseless killing by both animals and mankind. The first dead birds that I wove were a series of requiems for the birds my cat was killing and not always eating. As a vegetarian and a pacifist, this carnage was difficult to deal with. As I wove this series, I listened to the radio – news of the first Gulf War on CNN and CBC. Images of dead bodies and of bombs dropped with the aid of remote sensing technology became mixed in my mind with images of dead birds viewed through the lens of a camera. As I sat at my loom weaving images of death, my purpose in weaving these tapestries grew from simple blessings for the souls of the birds to encompass my response to all ritual killing.

I continue to use this image but the dead birds (or parts of birds) now stand for many things. It is a symbol that everyone seems to relate to and view through their own interpretations. For instance, in ‘Ozymandias’ some people feel the bird is an avenging angel while others have said it is coming to rescue the world. I try to work with universal symbols that reach people on many levels.

Can you explain how 9/11 has influenced your work?

I have woven one piece explicitly about 9/11, ‘Still Life…with Bird,’ though acts of terror are a continuing horror. In that tapestry, the skeleton of the world trade centre, the skeleton of a bird wing, and actual bones are all testaments to terrorism as a tactic of war. The orange sky evokes the aftermath of 9/11, the bones evoke museum displays. Bones are precious; they can be buried in a cairn or burned in a crematorium or buried in another sense in a dusty museum drawer. Think of the native tribes seeking to recover the bones of their ancestors. In future ages will archaeologists dig in what was once New York and wonder at what they find? The stories of bone fragments of truly minuscule size being used to trace the person they belonged to through DNA affected me deeply.

You have many exhibitions at the Elliot Louis Gallery can you expand on this particular Gallery’s interest in tapestry?

This gallery has recently closed but still exists virtually: the website is still viable and the owner, Ted Lederer, sells online. I was thrilled to find a local commercial gallery owner who regarded tapestry as an art form and was willing to promote my work. He also exhibited the work of several other fibre artists.

Can you discuss your ‘Cover Up’ Series? How did you choose the 9 portraits in this series?

"We are locked into other people's perceptions of who we are, he thought. We are none of us free to live our lives unseen."
Timothy Findlay in "Pilgrim"

"A man in a uniform...or a man in a robe, for they are the same things, is not a man but a cipher, but a function, but a walking idea; his clothes walk and speak for him. And under cover, who knows who he is or what he does."
A.S. Bayatt in "Babel Tower”

The ‘Cover-Up’ series is comprised of 9 portraits in which the bodies and faces of the people depicted are obscured by their costume. While each stares straight out of the tapestry at us, a sense of tension arises as we strive to make eye contact but cannot. In the absence of facial expression to reveal character, we search for other clues to personality and revert to stereotypes to assign identity.

I did quite a lot of research to find the images, wanting to depict men and women, ethnic and western individuals. I chose the ones that spoke to me most. Some are collaged, some are used with the permission of the photographer, and the surgeon and the bride are my own photos.

I have purposely made the body language of the figures belie the normal interpretation we put on their costumes to increase our level of discomfort. The ‘Canadian Klansman’ presents as an innocuous elfin businessman complete with paunch and old school tie. His hood even has a tassel.

The downtrodden ‘Afghani Woman’ whose chador covers her hands making her even more powerless, stares out in a strong, almost intimidating manner. Even though we cannot see her eyes, we are moved to lower our own.

The ‘French Foreign Legionnaires’ stand in fashion model poses. I wanted to make the viewer stop for a moment and open a dialogue with these covered-up individuals. If the stereotypes are not true, who are these people?

In times of terrorist attacks and racial profiling, can we afford to “judge a book by its cover”? Genetically programmed to make split second decisions as to whether an individual is friend or foe, I hope the viewers’ thwarted assumptions lead them to take a few more seconds to question their reactions.

Can you discuss background in your work, e.g. ‘Bedouin Woman’

In tapestry one weaves the background and the foreground at the same time. One is not superimposed on the other and so both have equal importance.

In the ‘Cover Up’ series I tried to create backgrounds that would provide context for the figures and enhance the message. In ‘Bedouin Woman’ the background is woven in warm tropical colours in shapes reminiscent of palm trees; in ‘Canadian Klansman’ the background is fire - the world is ablaze; in ‘Afghani Woman’ she stands before a cold grey stone wall like a prison.

Discuss your passion with stone, stone walls and your tapestries?

I have always been drawn to stonewalls, especially ones made without dressing the stones or using cement - walls, often from ancient ruins, that could crumble and no one would ever know they had been there. Whenever we travelled I would photograph them. To me they were symbols of man living in harmony with his surroundings and I saw the spirit of the makers in them. This idea led to a series where I placed a transparent figure, often taken from old family photos, in front of a wall. And as I said above, weaving a tapestry is like building a stone wall so I can smile at the idea on a meta level as well.

On a more mundane level, I love their abstract nature. My hand-spun, hand-dyed yarns is perfectly suited to translate them into tapestry. Weaving stones gives me the opportunity to play with colour and texture and these tapestries are a wonderful break from more depressing subjects.
This spring, after working on three large works about the environment for a solo show, I wove two more stonewalls, bringing my total to twenty-two.

How important is poetry to the inspiration of your work?

Reading both prose and poetry often inspires a work or seems relevant to illustrate an idea. My husband writes poetry and there are several of his poems about my tapestries on my website. They give the tapestries another layer of meaning.

Discuss the work, ‘Shiva Dances’

‘Shiva Dances’ is based on Hubble telescope images of a distant nebula. Nebulae arise from black holes, the site of both the destruction of stars and their creation. Shiva is a Hindu God/Goddess often depicted dancing; she is goddess of both creation and destruction, as the two are inextricably intertwined and are constantly evolving one from the other (yin and yang).

These days, all we seem to read about is destruction. I feel life is a cycle and we need to find ways to turn this destruction into an opportunity of new creation, into a more harmonious way of life.

Tell us about the changes that have taken place in your work through three images?

All the Diamonds (1982) | The Last Resort (1992) | Detritus (2014)

I work in series: sometimes several tapestries in a row explore a theme, sometimes a theme recurs over and over again through the years (as in the Stonewall series). In a previous artistic incarnation I was a printmaker, but I became allergic to the chemicals and had to abandon the medium. Tapestry was another way to make images and explore ideas and my first tapestries were very graphic in nature. I wove landscapes (or seascapes) as in ‘All the Diamonds,’ a commission for a law office. Here three photos from three different perspectives were collaged together with imaginary elements to reinforce the beauty of sunlight on the ocean.

In subsequent years after the birth of my son, I was drawn to family history, family stories, whether true or misremembered, and old family photos. ‘The Last Resort’ is based on a photo my father took of his father when he was on a family vacation at the age of thirteen. I loved the gesture my grandfather made to ward off the budding amateur photographer and it became, for me, a symbol of the old order trying to ward off the new.

The title is a pun as is that of its partner piece, ‘Right of Passage’ which is also based on a photo taken by my father on the same day. In that tapestry, space has opened up between the bathing tents and my uncle looks at the viewer and at a new life.

My current work arose from my concern over what we are doing to our environment. ‘Detritus’ is based on photos I took four years ago as I walked along the beach beside Caesarea in Israel. I had visited there many years before and the crumblingstones of the ancient site had inspired a series of tapestries of transparent people against stone backgrounds. Now, though, I found the spirituality of the place desecrated by the bits of plastic intermingled with seashells and stones. Over the centuries, the site had seen invaders come and go over; they had built imposing edifices that could crumble into dust and be reabsorbed by nature, but today’s plastic will take millennia to disintegrate. I added a feather as my call to attention, a remnant of my dead birds, a reminder of the fragility of the ecosystem. We are all detritus thrown up on the beach.

Explain how and why you use windows in your work?

I am drawn to doors and windows, the liminal area between two actual places or spiritual states. A door or window is a frame to isolate a figure or emphasize an act. It is an entry point for the viewer who cannot see the other side and can therefore let their imaginations roam. It is a link between worlds.

In ‘Sarah Rebecca,’ for example, a woman larger than lifesize is framed by the window of a shack found in the American Southwest. She is from another time and place judging by her clothing and hairstyle. How did she come to be there? Is she real or a ghost? She represents all the people dislocated from home by fear or hope. They have travelled through time and space to find a better life and their spirits linger on in their homes and in our memories.

‘Dreams –Left Window’ and ‘Visions – Right Window’ are the outer panels of a triptych inspired by slides I took in the old Jewish quarter of Krakow, Poland. The tapestries deal with the power of memory to distort and to preserve and to keep a culture alive. The windows in the tapestries with their broken glass and crumbling wood are peopled by the spirits and stories of the generations who inhabited these now-disintegrating buildings. The woman on the left is from a photo by Roman Vishniak, the man on the right is my great-grandfather. They are all our ancestors who live in our memories.

‘New Art of the Loom’ is group show curated by Dirk Holger, who arranged the tour and who is also publishing a book of the same name. He invited people to send him slides of large scale tapestries and chose work from that submitted. The weavers come from many countries and continents and only shipping costs have prohibited the exhibition from travelling outside North America.

‘Falling from Grace’ is a solo show curated by Barbara Duncan and includes all my tapestries dealing with bird imagery as well as a few others. She liked my work and invited me to show in her public gallery and the tapestries in the show were chosen by her. It is currently on exhibit at the Maple Ridge Art Gallery (until the end of July) and we hope to have it tour to other venues. There is a catalogue available with curatorial and critical essays and images of the work in the show.

Contact details.

bheller@telus.net

www.barbaraheller.ca

Barbara Heller, BC, Canada

Interview by Deborah Blakeley, July, 2014

by Deborah Blakeley