Tapestry thinking…continued…(argh)

You have to know when to hold ‘em

Know when to fold ‘em

Know when to walk away

Know when to run…

(The Gambler, Kenny Rogers)

Arghhhhh….tapestry is HARD. 

I’ve been working on a new tapestry, and it has followed the same trajectory as all my other ones. 

It starts great, everything is peachy, and then by the time I’m halfway through, I’m sad because I can’t make it look like my design, or I have accumulated a series of imperfections (ribbing, selvedge pulling in, wonky edges) which means I don’t want to finish it off.

This is my sixth tapestry, and each one has presented some sort of technical sadness (or multiple sadnesses) that I have tried to address in the next. 

But, whack-a-mole style, each time I address one issue, another one pops up.

I also think I’m still trying to make my tapestry fit my ideas.

Which means, my ideas are not YET tapestry ideas - I’m not really thinking INSIDE the material constraints of tapestry yet. 

I think the next steps (after I finish this one…I WILL finish this one…) might be to focus more on the tapestry structure, to lean into the nature of the weave, the warp and the weft capabilities.

Simplify my designs? Focus in on one thing at a time?

And get all that technical stuff (that is making me sad) - tension, selvedges, spacing/sett, weft bundles - RIGHT. 

And (again) consider the question: what can I ask the tapestry to do that works with what I want to do? 

But for now, I have spent a good chunk of time this week UNWEAVING what I had woven…not quite burning it all down to the ground and starting again…but almost. I’ve written about this destruction/construction process before, and sometimes the only way forward is to go backwards. 

And I was RIGHT. 

It is starting to look more like it is working. 

For now…