A Few Experiments with ...weaving
Experiments with wire, threads and beads
I’ve not tried any weaving techniques before, to be honest it’s not really something that’s interested me. Perhaps it partly due to an aversion to too many straight lines and grid patterns and anything that’s too repetitive or an association with macramé and similar ‘earthy’ things in the 1970s! Recently, however, I have given weaving a go.
In November last year, I embarked on a two-year Advanced Textiles Course at City Lit in London as a way of pushing myself creatively to see how I could move areas of my work forward that is so difficult on your own. We got off to a good start, before our classes were put on hold in January due to Lockdown. Whilst waiting for classes to resume, we were given some things to explore on on our own - one of which was weaving.
I’ve been keen since the first lockdown not to buy any new materials and make use of things that I already have - using familiar materials in different ways and being creative with resources. So, confronted with a challange of trying weaving, I decided to try a pick and mix approach to materials and an experimental approach to the weaving process. In other words, I decided to make it up as I went along!
I decided with my ‘give it a go’ approach to not worry about whether what I’m making is going to last, or fall apart or whether someone would buy it. This has been an exercise in developing ideas and getting back to enjoying making.
First of all I tried some randome weave experiments for a sketchbook that I made based around a single colour - red. I gathered every ribbon, yarn, thread, bit of paper, that I had in red or a complementary colour and wover them together and stitched them in place. I liked the range of textures and colours and the next thing I tried was pulling apart some lovely builder’s hessian that I salvaged when we had some work done on our house a few years ago used some more threads to weave throught the fabric to create an open texture.
Happy with my samples, I then developed some ideas a bit further. I used more hessian and pulled it apart again, this time weaving in linen threads in muted colours and adding natural materials such as dried stems and seed heads. As the idea developed, it seemed to work more as a 3 dimensional form than as something flat. By wrapping the fabric back on itself and securing it, I could stand it up by balancing it on the stems. I’ve always found something really appealing about dried stems and seed heads. They are so detailed and fragile and disintegrate so easily which I suppose is exaclty what they are designed to do to fulfill their function for dispersing seed.
Next, I moved on to some more experiments using weaving in the round. I decided to use favourite materials such as wire, linen cord, raw silk yarn and beads and see what happened when I combined them. Using the wire was a fiddly and time-consuming process - but I like a bit of a challenge! I had been subconsciously inspired by the structure of microscopic protozoa called Radiolarians. They have beautiful, intricate mineral skeletons and what emerged were some alien-looking creatures based on these but in technicolour! I rather like the funky, alien design and can imagine a series of them developing.
Alien forms with wire, waxed threads and beads inspired by Radiolarians
I will be trying more weaving and basketry techniques when we return to our classes at City Lit next term. I look forward to more experiments and seeing how the techniques I’m learning might appear in my work in the future.