Tapestry Topics A Quarterly Review of Tapestry Art Today www.americantapestryalliance.org Summer 2010 Vol 36 No 2 On Designing for Tapestry by Thoma Ewen Within each of us is a deep well of creativity. It is linked to spirit and to the life force, and it is essential to well being. I often send my students outside to look at the natural environment. To me, everything begins with what you see as being beautiful. I am an artist because I wish to partici- pate in beauty. When I design and weave, my desire is to communicate the beauty that I feel. Designing tapestry begins with something I see in the natural environment that moves me. It's as if I take a visual impression of the feeling that a particular scene evokes in me. This transforms into a visual image in my mind. I give this process time and stay in touch with the feeling all the way through the designing and weaving process. I work with the visual image, exploring the feeling through drawings. I often do many Thoma Ewen at her loom. pastel drawings as studies before selecting the one I will weave into tapestry. I use the drawing that best captures the feeling. In my recent series Aurora Borealis Behind the Trees there are 10 drawings and four tapestries. Discover and enjoy your own creativity by playing with drawing or painting materials. If you feel inadequate, blocked, or stuck, watch young children finger paint. Try it yourself, as it is very freeing to lose yourself in the pure color, and the tactile joy of finger painting. Your finger paint- ings can become abstract designs for tapestries. Go to art museums and galleries. Look at art - all art. Search for tapestry exhibitions and textile museums. Search for professional tapestry artists and follow their solo and group exhibitions. Go on artist studio tours, and go to open studios in your area. Join a tapestry or weavers group as well continued on page 3... IN THIS ISSUE... Tips & Tactics ~ Thoughtful Musing Elizabeth Buckley, Elaine Duncan, Thoma Ewen, Tricia Goldberg, Monique Lehman, Julie Mitchell, Ixchel Suarez Aubusson ~World Heritage Site TWW ~ "Shining Brightly" Mary Lane ~ Volunteers Make a Difference Mark Your Ballot ~ Directors Vote & ATA Tag Line You bet we are interested... In this Issue by Julie Barnes Tips & Tactics: Thoughtful Musing On Designing for Tapestry . 1 Gracias! A number of members have sent e- by Thoma Ewen mails about their article ideas and willingness Tapestry as an Art Form . 5 to coordinate themes for upcoming issues. This by Ixchel Suarez is great! Personal Meanings in Art and Tapestry . 6 Erica Diazoni will be coordinating the Fall by Tricia Goldberg issue focusing on teaching the next generation The Kaunas Biennial TEXTILE 09 . 7 of tapestry weavers. by Monique Lehman The Best Advice . 8 Contact her with your by Elaine Duncan article ideas: Finding the Inside of Things . 9 ([email protected]). by Julie Mitchell July 15 is the submis- The Good Gesture . 10 sion deadline. by Elizabeth Buckley Aubusson: Une ville extraordinaire . 11 The winter issue will by Katherine Perkins feature handspun yarns Mary Lane ~ Volunteers Make a Difference . 12 with theme coordinator Erica Diazoni by Ellen Ramsey Stanley Bulbach coordi- TWW ~ "Shining Brightly" . 14 nating the articles. by Sonja Miremont Contact Stanley through EXHIBITS & EVENTS. 16 his website: by Mary Lane • Unraveling the Creative Strand (www.bulbach.com) if you • An Enchanted Evening would like to participate. • Tapestry Enchantment October 1 is the winter • Enchanted Pathways issue submission deadline. • American Tapestry Biennial 8 ~ Awards & Announcements Remember that being • Small Tapestry International 2: Passages a theme coordinator is Kudos . 18 only a short time commit- Stanley Bulbach ANNOUNCEMENTS . 19 ment, but is a valuable Exhibit: Dialogues: Tapestry and Human/Nature position that brings life to ELECTIONS & VOTES . 21 Board Candidates Bios and ballots each issue. It also gives the theme coordinator a good chance to network and meet more ATA members. IMPORTANT DATES Please consider sharing your time and tal- ents while exploring your tapestry network as July 10 to 31, 2010, Enchanted Pathways theme coordinator for one of these upcoming July 24, 2010; 5:00 - 7:00pm, An Enchanted Evening issues: July 25, 2010 from 10:30am - 1:30pm, Unraveling the Exploring Color: Creative Strand making color, using color, seeing color July 25 - July 28, 2010, Tapestry Enchantment Cartoons: Let me tell you a story... September 20 - November 15, 2010, American Tapestry Biennial 8, If those themes aren't your cup of tea, Elder Gallery, Nebraska Wesleyan University, Lincoln, NE why not suggest one of your own? Send your January 22 - May 1, 2011, American Tapestry Biennial 8, ideas to Julie Barnes ([email protected]). American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA The Tapestry Topics team is waiting to hear April 2, 2011 - mid May, Small Tapestry International 2: from you! Passages, Weaving Southwest in Taos, New Mexico 2 Tapestry Topics Summer 2010 Contact ATA On Designing for Tapestry PO Box 28600 San Jose, CA 95159 continued from page 1... www.americantapestryalliance.org Director of Member Services as joining a drawing or painting class. Let yourself Becky Stevens [email protected] become inspired and encouraged by seeking out oth- Director of Resources ers who are also in the process of discovering their Mary Zicafoose [email protected] own creativity. Treasurer Rosalee Skrenes [email protected] Make the effort to visit tapestry exhibitions in Member Chair person. Seeing tapestry in an exhibition is a very dif- Diane Wolf [email protected] Education Committee: Distance Learning ferent experience from looking at images of tapes- Barbara Heller [email protected] tries online, over the internet, or in books. This past Ed. Com. Coordinator, Events & Online study groups summer, after directing The Big Weave community Mary Lane [email protected] tapestry project in Reading, England, I visited the Online Study Groups Devonshire Hunting Tapestries at the Victoria and Dorothy Clews [email protected] Library Chair, Archives & Slide Registry Albert Museum in London. Though I have poured Joyce Hayes [email protected] over photographs of these works in books, the actual ATB8 experience of standing in front of them was truly Michael Rohde [email protected] awe inspiring and literally reverential. It's as if the Susan Iverson [email protected] figures in the tapestries are alive. The tapestries give Small Format Exhibition Letitia Roller [email protected] off so much energy. ATA Awards Look at art. Look everywhere. Look at all art Elisabeth Quick [email protected] PR Chair media. Then go inward and let your own creativity Elaine Duncan [email protected] emerge and express itself, and let it begin to flow. Volunteer Coordinator Art is a manifestation of human vision and spirit. Joan Griffin [email protected] You may have intense reactions to some forms of art. Web Editor Such reactions show that the artist is a strong com- Christine Laffer [email protected] Webmistress municator. It is profound when you let an artist's tal- Jeanne Bates [email protected] ent speak directly to you and you understand what Web Exhibits that artist is saying. Sarah Swett [email protected] Dave Johnson [email protected] Observe your own environment. Keep a journal Artist Pages or sketchbook and jot down your visual ideas and Sarah Warren [email protected] thoughts. Sketch the landscape and write descriptive notes about the colors - like of the sunset. Tape yarn samples into your sketchbook as reminders. Record continued... Thoma Ewen, pastel drawing for Garden of Light series Thoma Ewen, "Garden of Light 2", 2 x 3' 2008 Newsletter of the American Tapestry Alliance 3 your environment and the things you love in it Your ongoing participation on both fronts allows us to through your sketches and notes. Draw the life sponsor a dynamic slate of exhibitions, programs, a around you or the objects in front of you: the plants website, and a quarterly newsletter that continue to on the window sill, the cat asleep on the sofa, the receive both critical and popular acclaim. ATA's debris on the breakfast table after the morning exit, growth in membership seems to confirm the work that your cityscape, or the natural environment where you we are doing. We are 500 strong! live. Despite an exceptionally challenging winter in Give yourself time to practice drawing. If you most parts of the United States, we are greeting spring draw consistently over a winter, your progress will while anticipating summer and fall with many exciting be quite visible. With each successive drawing or events on the ATA calendar. We hope to see you at our sketch, your confidence and ability will develop, and annual meeting in Albuquerque, at the SOFA-West you will begin to amaze yourself. You will discover exhibition in Santa Fe or at the opening of the how enjoyable the process is. Begin to develop your American Tapestry Biennial 8 (ATB8) exhibition held own designs for tapestry, starting with very simple in conjunction with the Textile Society of America design exercises. conference in Lincoln, NE. The process of practice will allow you to reach We understand that this is a new and different line into your own imagination. You will then drink from up and presentation of perennial favorite events for your deep well of creativity and communicate the ATA, particularly in relation to not opening ATB8 at beauty you see and feel in your tapestries. the upcoming Convergence conference. As we look beyond our organization, in the broadest sense, we see that these are times of change everywhere, on every Parts of this article are excerpted from The front, demanding patience and flexibility from us all.