The Life of a Tapestry
Did you get to watch any of the IG Live ATA Media Tour 2022 events this past week?
If you didn’t, you can still access them all on Instagram through each individual’s account.
If you don’t know what I’m referring to, The American Tapestry Alliance put together “a week in the life of a tapestry” taking us from Inspiration to Finishing this past week. I am honored to have been a part of it. For those of you that haven’t seen it- or don’t have access, I thought I’d give a synopsis - a little teaser - of each one followed by some thoughts of my own.
Screen shots from IG Live: Top left: Mary Zicafoose, right: Tommye Scanlin Bottom left: David Heustess, right: Susan Iverson
Day one: Inspiration
Mary Zicafoose started the tour Monday on Inspiration. And Inspirational it was! She shared her gorgeous dream studio with us, complete with a separate dye laboratory and works in progress. Mind boggling the amount of math that goes into her process. The entire 60 minutes was wonderful, but I especially enjoyed hearing the story of her land and her plans to start working with natural dyes from native plants and mushrooms from her own surroundings.
Day Two: Design
Tuesday continued with Design where we got to spend an entire hour hearing and watching Tommye Scanlin’s process and her many files of watercolors, paintings, and sketches that go into just one design. Tommye could probably fill a library with all the work that’s gone into each of her tapestries. And as I said in my tour… “She - literally - wrote the book!”
Day Three: Dyeing and So Much More
David Heustess was up on Wednesday. One (of many) of the high points for me was when he so lovingly spoke of his indigo dye vat. He also shared an inspirational photo from his past life as a dancer which was intriguing. I’m looking forward to seeing the tapestry that results. David has two studios: You can watch another video he did earlier that day showing the studios where he works and teaches at Vanderbilt University. He’s also the Director of Exhibitons for ATA and shared some exciting new plans in the works.
Day Four: Yarns for Tapestry
Thursday was my turn - on Yarns for Tapestry. It began with a studio tour followed by me rambling on about the yarns I use in my tapestries. I’m pretty lucky to have a beautiful studio, too, surrounded by many colorful yarns and inspiration. I talk about both warp and weft that I have used, warp setts, and bundling combos- and ask for others to chime in with their favorites, too.
Day Five: Finishing
And Friday was Finishing with Susan Iverson. She began with a studio tour, too, and her studio (one of two!) was also new and beautiful. Then she showed 4 books from her early years of tapestry learning that every weaver must have. I gotta say I learned a lot from this one! She used methods I had not seen explained or shown before - both for small and large tapestries.
One thing that struck me about each of the presentations was the ties that bind us all together - ok- the “threads” that bind! I found connections with every single presentation - and I’m guessing you will, too!
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Me in practice mode…
After finishing the filming of my “Live”, I realized there were a number of things I meant to say, wished I'd said, or could have said more clearly! That’s just the way it goes with anything in real time, on camera, or in person. I’ll include most of those in the next blog post when I dive into the weft yarns I talked about as a continuum of last week’s blog post on warp.
For now I want to mention The Single Most Important Thing I intended to say was how important ATA has been to me. I talked a little bit about how I’d been away from tapestry for a number of years - years where big changes had occurred. When I returned to tapestry in early 2018, I was hungry to learn everything I didn’t know I didn’t know! Wow. I stumbled onto the American Tapestry Alliance early on and I can’t even begin to tell you just how vast a resource it is.
If any of this has been of interest to you- and you do not belong to ATA- I urge you to JOIN! The many benefits and discounts that are included in a membership will more than cover the meager membership fee.
I’d also like to add a few notes on doing an IG Live event like this. It was the first time for all five of us. Here are a few things I/we learned in the process:
Camera position is funky! IG requires it to be vertical- portrait mode, which does have some issues.
Comments get in the way - I was aware of this because of watching the other presentations, too. I think it’s not a problem when viewing on a desktop or possibly a tablet.
Comments don’t save to the recorded version. This was a real shame and something I didn’t realize would happen until too late. Luckily, I had a little fairy on my shoulder looking out for me. More on that next week.
It’s really difficult to talk and still monitor the comments coming in. In my case, I had to stand on tiptoes to get above the camera and shift my focus between centering on the screen and reading the comments.
Now I know this has left some of you out who prefer not to be on Instagram, but ATA is planning on doing some zoom sessions to include those not on IG. IG Live was chosen for the exposure element- and we have certainly gained a lot of exposure. My Live video shows over one thousand views!
Did you watch it?
Share your thoughts!