Return from Utah

My partner and I spent 5 days in Utah last week with my extended family, some friends, and 5 assorted dogs (fortunately only 2 of them were ours).  The weather was beautiful and the amazing canyons of Butler Wash and Comb Ridge near Bluff were just as fabulous as ever.  If it weren't for the rainstorm and the clay puddle my tent was sitting in the morning we were to leave, I might still be there.

 I especially enjoyed the rock formations on this trip.  The striations in the rock and the colors that swirled around each other reminded me of weaving.  The tactile aspect of the various rocks and the walls of the cliff dwellings were interesting to me and brought to mind my love of the tactile nature of fiber and weaving.  Touch is so important to experience.  Can we allow this when we're making art also?

There were many remnants of cliff dwellings in those canyons.  I marveled at the way the rocks were stacked and placed decoratively in places.  I could feel the grooves fingers had made in the mud used for mortar so many years ago.

Blog Initiation

This is my first foray into blogging.  I have eschewed the process in the past due to a deep-seated dislike of "vanity" blogs.  But I have been persuaded to try blogging as a way of connecting with other people interested in tapestry and as a way to describe my process when creating tapestry.  Hopefully it can be a less formal way than my website to communicate where I am with my art.  Wish me luck!

 

Today I mailed this piece (titled This Time I Dance) to a friend who purchased it in Denver.  It is always a little sad to see a piece go (especially because this one just came off my loom a couple weeks ago), but it is good to know that it is appreciated by a friend.  After all the work of designing the piece, dyeing the yarn (which for this piece was a lengthy process of about 50 colors), weaving the piece, finishing it, photographing it, and looking at it on the studio wall for awhile, putting it in a box and relinquishing it to a postal employee seems a little shocking.  But we have to let our art go so it can find its own way in the world and so that we artists can move on and create something new.