Threading Through Time
The original images seen here began as field sketches, which became acrylic Strappo mono-prints or pastel paintings. These were then converted into larger jacquard tapestries by a computerized, digital weaving mill in North Carolina. Jacquard fabric is a process in which the image and its colors are incorporated into the weaving of the fabric rather than dyed onto the fabric surface. Some tapestries remain in this finished jacquard form, while others are completed with hand-stitching, creating new textures, and bringing visual emphasis to the imagery of the weavings.
This combination of pairing traditional handcrafted techniques with contemporary digital weaving creates space and time to revisit ideas and find new associations and meaning that were not originally evident. Living adds context. Slow art making provides the time to digest experiences and sort through them, leading to new ideas and ways of thinking and making.
The weaving process itself adds an engaging dimensionality: the path of the threads; the juxtapositions of colors in the warp and weft; or the nuanced details of a 10 x 10-inch print that emerge as fascinating elements in a 48 x 48-inch tapestry. This is the DNA of a new creation story, complete as woven. Or the tapestry becomes the canvas upon which the story unfolds in new ways as the textures and colors of added materials play off woven surface patterns, visually shapeshifting into other directions and dimensions.
Time stitches it all together, linking past with present through an intricate evolution of ideas and process.
