In the craft cave I aim to make things with a pleasing aesthetic but generally they are things which are functional: bags, straps, cushions, scarves and so on. Taking time to think about which colours will work well together and how to add an inkle band or a little quilting to stylise the product gives them a utilitarian beauty if you will, but the bulk of the creativity is in the construction.
I've recently found myself wanting more than that. The best way to explain it is by referencing the William Morris quote: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” I have a pretty good grasp of the "useful" (after all, I was an engineer), but I've never really found a way to express the creativity, which was somewhere along the way supressed in favour of the practical. Weaving being both practical and creative has perhaps been my gateway drug to creativity and having got a taste for it, the urge to focus on the "beautiful" has been growing. I've begun to wonder, is it time to step back from useful products and time to make "art for art's sake?"
But what? There is only so much space in the craft cave, so a new hobby wasn't really an option. Maybe it was time to re-vist an old one. In a rarely visited drawer languished the paint and brushes which had been in storge since becoming a "mess hazard" when combined with a puppy. I dusted them off and joined a painting group. Painting to a weekly theme, rather than doing my own thing really pushed me out of my comfort zone. It was great! It was freeing to just "go for it" and to not have to worry about whether it was any good or not because next week's subject or style might be a better fit.
Meanwhile the craft cave bag of weaving thrums (the left over bits) continued to fill up. The off cuts were destined to become cushion stuffing rather than go to landfill, but sometimes the yarn was too pretty to just scrunch into padding. I toyed with trying to turn it into some kind of felted fabric, but wasn't really sure how that would work with a mix of fibres, but then an idle internet search threw up a quote attributed to Albert Einstein:
"Life is a great tapestry. The individual is only an insignificant thread in an immense and miraculous pattern."
Tapestry. I could weave a tapestry and use up a bunch of thrums for small areas of colour. Landscapes were a recent theme at painting group, so inspired by that and a recent visit to a sand duned beach I wove an interpretation of looking through the dunes and out to sea. Craft cotton made a sturdy warp and treasures from the thrums bag together with a little virgin yarn made up the image.
Weaving the little areas of colour wasn't easy using the "make a yarn butterfly" method I'd seen online. My butterflies either fell apart or knotted up rather than unravelling on demand, so I allowed myself a new hobby purchase - a set of net repair shuttles.
It was slow going, making up an image from imagination (maybe I should have used a photo and re-created that in yarn) but it was very relaxing (slow and rhythmic). The mix of the analytical (how to fit together the blocks of colour, in which order) and the creativity of colouring in the image was stimulating yet freeing. I really enjoyed it.
The follow up was an abstract piece, inspired by images from the Anni Albers exhibition at Tate Modern.
In the images the tapestries have been laced onto picture frames. That has slightly distorted the straight lines of the abstract pattern, but I think they'll go back into place when released from the frame. I haven't yet worked out the best way to hang them. I could add dowels to the top and bottom and let them hang freely. Maybe they could be laced onto mount board and framed.
Do you weave tapestries? What is your preferred way to mount/hang them? Let me know in a comment.
