I'm So Not the Pretty Sketchbooks Type

Gov Walz's face reminded me I was thinking about pretty notebooks/sketchbook/visual diaries in July, and weather to start a new project as means to make such a book. It went nowhere as I was outside weeding as much as possible back then.

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Often I wish I were a type of maker who kept pretty sketchbook and visual-diaries. I'm not. I write on backs of receipts and envelopes, and occasionally scribble in notebooks, while saving a bunch of nicer ones for "later". My books are usually filled with words, rough sketches, thumbnails of different sizes and complexities, chronologies, and lists, lists, lists.

Then again I'm not a looking-into-the-past person. I have little useful information in my records, and prefer to reinvent the wheel every time, so even if I managed "pretty" books, chances are I won't revisit them often. (It's the same with seldom revisiting past blog posts; reading past posts is like listening to my own voice on tape.) Occasionally I cull sheets of paper and ceremoniously burn then in the wood burner in winter.

The only real record of my weaving past are my samples; you know those three-drawer wire shelves for vegetables? I have two full of samples.

A tapestry weaver posted a link to this article in FB. These makers are dedicated sketchbook folks, and I was interested in what they had to say, and found them... a little tiresome. I'm never short of ideas and the good ones tend to stay with me without my committing them on paper. Developing ideas; that's where paper comes in handy, but I just jot or scribble in a rush.

If I were to start a pretty book, I could print out drafts and paste them alongside threads and sample swatches, but this sounds like a lot of work for info I'll unlikely revisit. For me it's record-keeping for the sake of the record-keeping. Oh, I am being so negative!

Past records starting 2002, some hard-cull survivors, and doodles, mixed media, and other non-weaving stuff.

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I finished the dreaded 2023 Matisse not-project in last week, dreaded because it was left untouched for half a year. I don't know why I lost enthusiasm, particular the Green Stripe Mme. Matisse. Compared to the earlier Lydias, Mme. Matisse was not a happy face, and it was as if I was channeling M. M's feeling towards Mme. I liked this Lydia disguised as Mme.

If pretty sketchbooks/notebooks are the desired outcome, I could work though a "How to" books and improve/enhance my design skills, perhaps. I brought some out, relishing how I enthusiastically started working on many, not finishing most, and why I didn't like certain books. Many made me feel they may be useful to tapestry weavers and "fiber artists" but not to cloth weavers. That doesn't bother me as much these days; I'll take what I can get out.

Alternatively, I could draw more faces, and since it's July already, I need to stick with it for less than six months if the project doesn't excite. To that end, I printed out Marlow and my favorite Vincent portraits. But nothing jumps out.

Still Meandering a Similar Path

I have been sitting on a few drafts this winter. This one originally came about a couple of months after the previous post.

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Folks and teams I support usually don't come out on top in reality TV shows, sports championships, and the like. I didn't hold too much hopes for my fav US VP candidate, the current Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, so I was doubly thrilled when he was chosen. And even though he looks and sounds to be a thoroughly normal, nice guy, he is a seasoned politician, bound to disappoint purists like me at some point. Still, I'm still a fan of sorts, and I started doodling his face mid-August.

I find images on paper easier to draw from, so I printed out a dozen. I imagined his face wouldn't be too difficult until I tried a few blind contours. No, I have to learn it. The learning is still ongoing, and I've started including semi-blind-mixed-with-gesture style, and the more I got used to him, the more I prefer images with a bit of character.

Another thing I learned was drawing from photos are harder compared to drawing from paintings, e.g. the bard, because "it's all there". The styles of paintings I use as models have already been through abstraction by the artists, so I don't have to edit much. While selecting and printing the Gov's photos, thoughts about how I design/play resurfaced. You already heard some of it the last post, but I feel compelled to record from a different angle, not solely focused on weaving but more the way I "think", I think.

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In the early days, I worked either recipe-based or vision-based. Recipe-based meant I found an attractive weaving project in a book or online, adapted it to suit me, and wove. This approach was fairly successful, but unsatisfying. Vision-based approach, (it sounds so grand, doesn't it?) was when I saw a mind-picture of an attractive cloth, (which used to happen rather often,) I worked backwards to built a manageable project. How close the finished cloth was to the original mind-picture varied, but I found this approach more satisfying.

In the days, (brace yourself!) when I was single-handedly trying to elevate handweaving to a Fine Art in New Zealand, (or, questioned why Art exhibitions refused nicely-woven cloths, but accepted tapestries or weird "textile art" with loose ends hanging down,) I spoke to a lot of art teachers from the polytechnic where I worked, many involved in the once famous-in-NZ Nelson Weaving School. One thing they agreed on was "Art" included "intention". I suspected they pictured local potters making 100 of the same mug from how they described a craftsperson's work, (Nelson is/was famous for pottery in NZ,) but I never learned what they meant by "intention". I knew neither of my two approaches included it. 

So I "did" design courses mentioned in the previous post, but also on my own using ideas found in books and the Internet. These were, however, methodical/procedural instructions, and I found no room for "intentions". The only thing I learned was though I didn't find collage useful in designs, "particularly in textile art" as it was repeated to me, I enjoyed it and still occasionally indulge in it.

Believing at the root of my problem was my inability/hesitance to draw, I signed up for figure drawing soon after my 50th birthday. The first six months was filled with self-doubt, self-loathing, and questioning if I'll ever "be good at it." Then suddenly, I was enjoying the act of drawing, results be damned. I always used the largest A1 paper, and drew big. I became used to not looking at the paper, (standing next to a tall easel made it easy,) or using my non-dominant, left hand, because neither allowed me control. In the absence of responsibility, drawing became akin to having my right hemisphere massaged. I was not good at likeness, and Ronette the teacher tried to fix it, erasing my lines or drawing over, but she was full a foot taller, and what she saw was completely different from my own low altitude, so the drawings ended up with cubism-esque weirdness.

Meanwhile, I became more interested in the geometric/graphic possibilities on the loom and forgot about Art vs. Craft.
 

I also become infatuated with mixed media works I found online, and an Aussie friend Carol told me Seth Apter was having workshops in Australia in 2014, so off I went. His workshops were exciting; being with a bunch of Aussie ladies was fun; I met former weaver Hope after communicating with her for eight years. But the most impactful meeting was with Jade, who became an art therapist soon afterwards, and then started the Letter Journal exchange. I attended her two online art therapy sessions, first because I wanted to support her new venture, but later because I became interested in how art therapy worked.

She held two courses, each being four or five sessions. I can't remember what the instructions were, but I remember discovering time and time again the dichotomy within my personality. This might have also been during the year and a half when I suddenly ceased weaving. I didn't have a specific problem I wanted to solve via the therapy, (notice I didn't see not-weaving as a problem,) so I just enjoyed the ride.

We used art supplies to express whatever we wanted to express/represent, so the finished "artwork" was both a means and an end, but its value was what we put in while making the stuff; this was as close to "intention" as I thought I would get. I found these therapy fun, freeing, and rewarding. You've seen some pictures here, here and here. I wished I saved them - I only have the big tree and the pink doll now.

In a way Letter Journal was an extension of this process: I was free to use whatever and do whatever to make a spread anyway I liked without a plan, not knowing where I would end up. On the other hand, it was collaborative, and had weight limits because they needed to be posted, so each spread presented unique problems, and you know I enjoy solving those. LJs were all play, play, play in retrospect.

I must also mention in the early '90s when I took floral arrangement classes, the teacher Mrs Ikeda said it's OK taking pictures of the arrangement, (inexpensive digital cameras were just coming to the market,) but stressed the importance of sketching the finished arrangement. I found it easier than I expected to get in the habit; my sketches weren't accurate, but I learned the characteristics of some of the plants/flowers/stems/leaves, especially the angles in which different parts of the plants connected. She also made us walk away from the arrangement to see it from the distance we might see the arrangements at home. That's when I started doing weird things like getting up on the chair to look at it from above, (I put the tall vases on the floor in our apartment,) or crouch and look from below, (we had a 120cm-tall shelving unit where all flat containers were placed.)

The kind of tricks I get up to when I want to play, have a project, or design these days include:
* Turning things sideways or upside down for closer scruitney;
* Walking away and looking from a distance, or from different angles;
* Thumbnails, rough drawings - I find abstraction difficult but thumbnails allow me to learn which part I'm interested in, or must include;
* Drawing with my left hand;
* Making scale paper models;
* Physical cut/paste, collage, mixed media;
* Abstract/purposeless paint work, often using hands/fingers, kitchen tools, textured things around the house;

* Image manipulation on the computer.

One thing I don't use is a viewfinder. I have a tendency to look close naturally, to focus on details, so it has helped me more to look from a distance and try to see the bigger picture. 

 

The end. 

Weaving Books and Learning and Designing

Weavers in Facebook weaving groups insisting this or that being the latest "must have" book led me to these meandering thoughts.

I've woven one piece where I followed a recipe. It was a commission in 2008 and the client was notified I would weave it within a year, but she got impatient after a month or two. Instead of reminding her what I promised, I used Strickler #301 I always wanted to weave. 100% cashmere in two grays, she looked better than I imagined, I was actually taken aback, she being one of those women who always dressed nicely but not over-the-top-ly, with a beautiful head of shoulder-length snowy gray hair perpetually cut just so.  

In the early days I read a few books, studied a few structures, but always made my own plans, in part because I have never been a recipe follower; in part because I have a hard time understanding weaving unless they are accompanied by plentiful illustrations/photos/vids, but mostly because I had few equipment/material at the start, and no immediate access to more , so I needed to improvise. One memorable project, my very first on a four-shaft loom, required two sizes of the same yarn for a texture-striped shawl. I wanted to make a set of cottolin serviettes based on the look, so I crammed/spaced the same sized yarn, and as long as I was modifying, I varied the width of the stripes.

I preferred to learn structures, from Strickler in the first instance, but as mentioned because I don't understand weaving in words only, once I got the gist, I made drafts to see if I understood the definition of that structure. On the other hand, I wove plain weave for seven years, then almost exclusively twill ever since; I sit with a given structure for a long time trying to exhaust possibilities, and have rarely needed new structures. (I learned Rep and corkscrew for a sample exchange scheme but never wove either again; double weave because I had commissions for baby blankets which I wove double-width; and finally tied unit weaves on weaving teacher Ali's recommendation to weave a specific look. Lucky this one stuck. It's the same for me with yarns; when I find a good one, I stick with it and collect different colors.)

I took the NZ Guild's design course twice in the 2000s; once by correspondence and once in person, because both the teacher Alison and I were unsatisfied with what I (didn't) learn in the first round; we were both happier the second time around, seen here and here. It helped that I knew the subject well: depression. (My classmates' reactions were interesting, one admonishing, two encouraging/empathetic.) For teaching purposes, Alison used a set process she learned from studying design herself. I can't remember all the details, but the following made long-lasting impressions:

* Research - collecting words/images and learning about the subject, which was easy, until I got into abstract subject, and then the words/images got weirder and more interesting;
* Drawings, starting with thumbnail sketches; also drawing with different material to draw the same thing, e.g. pencil, finger, Q-tip, stick and much more; also collages. Thumbnail sketches removed the need to draw accurately, allowing experimentation worry-free and one after another. Same to some degree with collage with torn pieces of paper. The different material/lines was the best trick, and though I don't use it in weaving design, I still enjoy it in my mixed media;
* Selecting material after we have an idea of what we want to make, which was obvious to me but many weavers already with big stashes, a surprise. These days, though, with a big stash myself, I choose from my stash the most suitable, (so, samey??) rather than searching afresh;
* Deciding on values before hues; a shocking idea, this hasn't entered my MO, but I sometimes remember this. I don't even look at others' artwork in this way, though.

Once or twice immediately after the in-person workshop, I followed her process fairly closely, (except the value part,) but over the years my MO has morphed into something more organic, depending on what the project is, how much time I have, how involved I want to be, etc. I have a few techniques I return to, and mix/match as suitable, and use whichever methods come up naturally rather than plan. I still think I have something of an image of the finished product, and work towards realizing it, rather than starting from a blank slate and building up a project.

I have noticed, particularly in listening to Stella the jewelry maker, is as I gain more experience weaving, I rush through the earlier "vague" thinking stages, if I spend time here at all, and start thinking about texture, structure, and a specific look/hand early. OR, my thinking has become two-pronged, and I try to marry/justify the combination of vague thinking with the specifics of weaving almost from the start. It may not be a bad idea to have a checklist of methods I have learned/collected, and see if I can use ones I'm not inclined to think of, for a more unexpected outcome.

This fast track to technique/method comes from my insistence on making my stuff on the loom, of making cloth rather than "fibre art", with all its own set of restrictions we are familiar with. But I would like a little more involvement in my making, more time in the vague stages of, (I know, I know, it's a cliche now, so I'll paraphrase,) thinking outside of my old dog crate.   

I didn't read many of my books, (and I have oh-so-many,) but gazed at the all pictures, and some I read cover to cover. I believed one day when I'm more advanced, I would need these books. Until I realized I didn't. And stopped buying. In fact for a time I found news of the latest must-haves distracting, but now I don't even hear them. Phew! I'm not a well-rounded weaver who weaves many structures or end products, and I'm happy with a handful of rabbit holes. Plus, some of my older books have now-non-standard notations about the threading/tie-up/treadling, which I find confounding. I can figure some out, but others, I can't be bothered.

If you ask me what is the one must-have weaving book, however, it's Strickler, no contest.