More about Me and My Beetles

I was interviewed by a docent, Debby Thompson about my piece in Small Expressions at the Long Beach Museum of Art.    If you would like to hear and see more about my piece, my studio and me check out the YouTube video she created based on the interview.  I think she has done a wonderful job.  What fun to have a hobby like video and to be able to combine it with a love of art to meet, interview and share  in depth insights of artists showing at the Museum.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mXiLJnYkJk

 Enjoy!

As you know I have one of my woven beetle pieces in the Small Expressions exhibit at the Long Beach Art Museum.  

In late May, I received a call from  Debby, a docent at the museum who was interested in making a video about the piece I had woven for the exhibit. Her hobby of making videos dovetails perfectly with the art and artists she has met at the museum.  She has done a number of YouTube videos about artists showing at the museum. I said, 'sure come on over'.  She spent perhaps an hour or so touring my studio and interviewing me and then went home and put together a wonderful video.

Here is the video she did about me, my studio and my beetles :  Nicki Bair: The Inspiring Weaver 

Small Expressions

Mr. & Mrs. Wallichii

One of my favorite species of beetles, the Dicranophalus wallichii wallichii beetle  is showing in the   Small Expressions exhibition being held May 10th-August 12, 2012 at the Long Beach Museum of Art in conjunction with HGA's Convergence® International Fiber Arts Conference, July 15-21, 2012. 

These two beetles, one male and one female, are flower beetles (Dicranophalus wallichii wallichii) woven in rayon and metallic sewing thread.  The title of the piece is Mr. & Mrs. Wallichii.

Long Beach Museum of Art

 This week I checked out the exhibit at the Long Beach Museum of Art and was extrememly happy with the pieces selected for the exhibit, how it was hung and how my piece looked.  Although there were not a lot of pieces in the exhibit, each piece had its own space allowing the viewer to get up and personal with it without being distracted by its neighbors.  


I always wonder about how my pieces will look in a museum setting since the light in my studios is not the best.  Although I have ott lights all over and never weave at night, sometimes it is a surprise to see how much more colorful and bright they are in a different setting. I visited the San Diego Guild on Mother's day weekend to give a talk about my work and the influence of my Mother on my work and again was surprised how much better my beetles looked under better lightening than that in my studio. 

First Quarter Recap

Christmas Balls Filled with Unwoven Thread

Taqueté Weaving Rule #25: Never re-weave unwoven thread.   

It's the end of the quarter and I spent this rainy morning filling glass Christmas balls with fiber.  The fiber is the sewing thread that I took out due to some sort of error I discovered while weaving taqueté.  Fixing mistakes is fairly simple with taqueté -put the heddles into their relaxed position, pull the threads out from each side, cut them off and start over with new thread.  I never re-weave with those threads - that would be so time consuming!  Plus, how else would I fill my empty Christmas balls?

I seemed to have been quite productive this quarter - 13 Christmas balls!    One specific beetle piece contributed at least half of the bounty.  At this rate I may have enough by December to fill an entire tree.  We shall see...

Pushing Through the Static

I have been running up close to my entry deadlines for exhibits.   Looming deadlines certainly raise the pressure...not a good thing when working with fine threads.  Usually I have things all ready to go quite early, not this year due to an extra special wee project that visited in the early months of this year.    But more on that later...

Beetles Resting

I have been planning a piece for the Glamour, Glitter & Glitz exhibit sponsored by Complex Weavers; the deadline is March 23rd.  Fortunately, the entire submission can be done on-line and happy be happy, my weaving just came off the loom.

There was some question as to whether it would be finished or simply chopped off the loom.   Static electricity made its first appearance in my studio and seemed to live continuously in my warp.    I have never had this problem before in all my years of weaving.  And naturally, I had a most complex weaving scenario going on, weaving three pieces at one time with four warps, seven shuttles and fourteen spools of rayon and metallic thread.  It seemed all threads would simply hug the warp, any warp, every warp...grrrr.... lots of messes, errors and re-do's.... spritzing every couple of passes seemed to help in the short term.  What would have really helped was a nice marine layer to roll in and fill our canyon with fog.

I am glad I simply pushed through the static and got this done. I want to thank my DH for sticking in there with all the consternation and swearing coming out of the back studio.   In the end, I think the three pieces will look absolutely exceptional once rested, trimmed, tweaked and mounted.

And for my color study group - voilá - a tetrad!

Spring is here...

How Lovely 100 Laces Can Be!

Winter is almost over so it's time to start planning for Spring.

 To me, Spring means Spring cleaning.  Happily, our closets and garages look quite respectable so this year I'll be focusing on my looms.  Time for each to have a good overhaul.  And that includes replacing those ratty old shoelaces and replacing them with nice smooth shiny new ones.  I just received my order of 100 from Nadine, the Singing Weaver.  She indeed has the best ones.   I bought a bunch of them years ago when I took her workshop and she showed all the various uses of the laces.

My table looms that I use for taquete work quite hard and the polyester warp is tough on those laces.  My tapestry loom starting needing laces awhile ago.  Indeed, I am always seem to be looking for a couple of shoelaces.  Sadly, my stash is now empty.    

I must admit to you, the thought of tying on a new warp with nice new shoelaces makes me feel all warm and toasty.

Undoubtedly summer is just around the corner.

Work In Progress

Work in Progress 48epi

Here is a close-up of a piece I am working on woven with sewing thread at 48 epi.   I did it with a new attachement for the camera in my I-Phone.  Details here in a different post.

Beetles at Rest

Beetles at Rest

Earlier this month I took off my first run at my next series of beetles off the loom.  Here's a photo of them resting.  The twenty beetles here were too big for my studio desk so I have them hanging off of a watercolor in the study.

Due to the sett and color selection they are much bolder & bigger than the previous series.  And after tweaking the designs, they are more anatomically correct...at least from an artists eye; perhaps not from an etymologist's.

As you can see I am weaving four at a time; each in slightly different colors.  I will be framing them in two different ways and keeping one set for myself.   I took these off so I can perfect the finishing and framing in case I need to modify the size of the final pieces.

Out with the Dust Bunnies

 Guess what I got for my birthday?  A Roomba! One of those small circular robots that vacuums your floor without you.   This seemed to be a perfect tie-in with my New Year's desire to keep my studio cleaner and more dust free.   And perhaps it would also be an enrichment activity for our chihuahuas.  How productive - weaving as well as cleaning!

 Here it is working in my studio.

Only problem - it sucks up loose thread.  Well you say, isn't that the point of a vacuum cleaner?  To pick up stuff on the floor - even thread?  But think of that thread which happens to be attached to a heddle ... here comes the Roomba...slurp...slurp...slurp... sucking it up...unwinding the thread effortlessly from the heddle... and so quietly until you grab it...or its all gone.  Then it moves on....relentlessly.

The Roomba next found a spool somewhere on the floor, a spool obviously out of my sight  I noticed later that the Roomba's wheels had turned from black to turquoise.  When I turned it over I saw a lot of turquoise thread wounded tightly around each wheel as well as all over the bristles.  Clearly, not thread I would be weaving with at any time in the future.

I have one re-cycling/re-purposing habit...I keep, collect and re-use my leftover Sulky thread... well at least those in colors I like. I like blue.  So I cut off the turquoise thread from my Roomba, packed it away like my other unusable threads...in Christmas balls.  The cleaning today yield two turquoise Christmas balls for next year's tree.  I usually don't fill more that one ball every couple months or so. Quite a productive day.

As for the chihuahuas, they don't find the Roomba enticing...but the Black & Decker Dustbuster continues to be their arch enemy.

Sampling is my Rabbit Hole

Sampling for me is a rabbit hole...

I start off with a new concept and the intelligent part of me says sample to make sure you are on the right track.    Then, days or perhaps weeks later, as happened this time, I finally stop sampling; get focused and get back on track using little of the information I gleamed from sampling.    

I know I do this...and yet I keep doing it...leaving so much less time to work on designing the layers of meaning in my piece, which is by far my favorite part.

I am incredible excited about a concept I have for a new series of pieces.  I started planning  backwards this time since I wanted to make sure it would be easy to finish and be exhibit quality.  First I bought the frames and planned how to finish the piece...next I bought two potential linens for the warp and weft with the  texture I wanted...then I chose the weaving structure which would do what I wanted it to do....  At this point I saw the piece so very clearly in my mind.  Ah, now the intelligent part of me said...best to sample to make sure you get the right sett, warp and pattern.    

Above you can see the result of three weeks of sampling, warping, changing reeds etc.  Over 14 feet of Huck (3, 5 and 7 thread Huck) in a variety of patterns, warps, wefts, setts, reeds,  etc.  Once I started my curiosity took over.  I liked the very first pattern I tried...but I had to try all the patterns in my new book on Huck since I was curious.  Then I had to change the sett...the warp...then various combinations of both...

And in the end,  I chose to use cotton seine as my warp and weft,  which I did not sample.  A set of 10 epi which I did not sample.  And moved to a table loom instead of the floor loom where I did do all those samples.  

And although I am a bit behind schedule,  I think it will work just perfectly...

Beetle Coasters 2011

Just finished signing, buffing and boxing my beetle coasters for 2011.   I have two dozen ready for sale for the holiday season.  Each beetle is a variation of my favorite beetle pattern; all done in colors of the southwest.   This is my second year of doing these; and hope to do a different set next year.

I spent a great deal of time getting them 'just right' and now I know I will have a tough time offering them for sale...I would love to keep them all!  Each is beautiful as well as useful plus with their own box they are  'no brainer' holiday gifts.

Expect them to climb out of their boxes and be ready for viewing the weekend prior to Thanksgiving... here.

So Many Challenges

If you are in any artist groups, have you noticed that each one seems to be having a challenge of some sort or some exhibit or another that you need a create a piece for?  Seems like so many more than before.   I've always thought if you join a group one should participate otherwise why be a member.  Since I really like all the groups I am in, I have been quite busy.

Just within the last few days, I have sent in photos of recent pieces to three exhibits and I just finished a small fun piece for the challenge of the Southern California Handweavers group.  Here's my challenge piece after playing with the image in my new CS5 package.

For this challenge we were to be inspired by a quote about color...mine quote was by Jules Fieffer, who said  artists can color the sky red because they know it is blue.  Those of us who aren't artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we are stupid. 

I've always wanted to make a pencil holder for my studio...while on a trip to the North Rim & Bryce I took a photo of the cliffs from the Navajo Bridge... I had an empty loom...some leftover yarn...everything came together in the end.

Life works that way sometimes.

Can You Name this Beetle?

Two Dozen Beetles

Now that the That's Sooo Seaside exhibit is up and the opening over, things have started to settle down.  Although it was a fun project and the final exhibit was fabulous it was surprisingly much more time consuming than I had ever imagined.  Now that it is over, I am happy to say I actually have time to design and weave!

These are some beetle designs I have wanted to weave for quite a long time.  They are a simple design with a multitude of permutations in the markings and antennae.  I have six done with 18 more to go.

I am creating 24 beetle coasters for an upcoming Designing Weavers Exhibit & Sale in November.   This will be my second set of coasters in a hopefully long series. Last year I decided I would create a new set of coasters with a different beetle design every year.  Something for the collector in all of us.     Last year, I thought I would do a Thailand beetle for the 2011 series but my 16 harness loom is busy on the Beetle Series Take Two project.   Looks like next year will be the year for that.

The rest of this beetle material is for a long jacket lapel.  I am hoping it will go well with some of the material I wove last year as past of my stash reduction project.

I have re-evaluated and re-stated all my weekly goals; my Woven Wanna Do's, through Spring of next year... one of my near time goals is to weave two of these beetles a week until I am done.  Of course, I have other items on the list for the week too...so I am off to weave...

Cheirotonus gestroi at two Setts

I have not been weaving with fine threads for awhile.  After warping up the loom with yards and yards of warping thread, selecting a design to test, checking the threading, I started to weave a beetle.   I then slept wrong and the muscles on one arm didn't like the motion I need to make to weave on my sixteen harness.  Hence the break.

I wove yesterday, enough to get to the top of the beetle and decided after a bit  my arm did not want to weave anymore.  Perhaps this afternoon I'll finish this one up.

As you may recall, I am starting my second series of beetles which I wish to be more vibrant, more realistic yet still artistic and better to view from about five feet away to up close.   I've changed the sett from 48 to 40 based on my Red Totems study of sett as well as now have four colors of warp.  As I weave I will have four beetles finished at a time; each on a different color warp as well as a different background color.  Three beetles will be great but one should be fabulous.

Here you can see the big difference a small difference in sett makes.  I used pretty much the same pattern and same types threads for both of these beetles.  The new one on the right is woven at 40 epi while the one on the left is one from my first series woven at 48 epi.

I just love this photo.  It says a lot so quickly that it would take too much time to describe...

March

March is a month of taxes and warping.  I hope to finish both this month. 

I am putting enough warp onto my sixteen harness Ashford to keep me busy all year creating a new set of beetles for my collection.  I would have put on more; but that is as much as my warping board would hold.   I am planning on this set of beetles to be more brilliant, more colorful,more anatomically correct and include more species from all the families in Thailand. 

I will be weaving four beetles at a time; each on a slightly different colored warp for a richer and more varied result.  The tabby warps; those on shafts 1 and 16 for me, show more on top than those on the other shafts. Thus, the impact of the tabby warps is much greater from a color blending standpoint.  The non-tabby warps are more subtle.   I've varied the colors within each beetle's warp yet kept them on the dark side of value.

Next I will be mulling over which technique to use to roll the warp onto the loom...will I swing it over our rafters in the living room... perhaps roll it on my metal skeiner...or come up with a new way to keep the warp tight and not moving while I thread the heddles.    While I mull,  I work on that other project.

Near Neutrals

As part of my color study group, I did something interesting yesterday with my Munsell color chips.

I created a palette of colors which are near neutral - just this side of grey - with just a hint of hue.   And included a full range of values.   Here is a color photo of the result; which is not quite true.  It looks richer and greyer in person.  Also I took a photo in black and white so you can see that this is a full palette of values.  What the colors have in common is that they are the lowest chroma/saturation in their respective categories.

Here is how I did it.  First I created a column of chips (on the left) that ran from white at the top to black at the bottom - a typical gray scale.  Next I selected the chips with the lowest chroma/saturation from my Munsell Color Handbook.  Since the Munsell color tree uses 10 hues; I ended up with ten columns of differing hues (red, yellow red, yellow,  green yellow, green, blue green, blue, purple blue, red purple, purple).  I lined up the chips within each hue in value order; lowest at the top and darkest at the bottom.

I find this palette absolutely fascinating.  The values are the same across the rows.  Each column is a different hue.  It never occurred to me the breadth and beauty of a palette of near neutrals.  Just the term neutral makes it sound dull and boring.  But there is enough value distinctions and color differences to create wonderful designs for a lifetime.

Results - Stash Reduction 2010

Here are the results for my stash reduction project for 2010. This is all the yardage I wove throughout the year; reducing the number of cones in my stash by 8-10.    (It may not look like much but this project is simply a filler project for those times when the brain wants something simple to weave.) 

There is a hint of purple throughout this grouping; since my goal was to rid myself of six cones of complementary rayon in a muted purple.  The pile on the right and the left include several cones of silk.  And most fun is the 2/3rds of a cone of a variegated metallic included in the one on the left.  All have a nice drape...perfect for light jackets or some sort of wrap.

Looking forward to 2011...I have selected the cones for the next reduction program...mostly cotton boucle' in a southwestern reddish palette.  If I get through these I also have a box of 6-8 greens....

A Leading Indicator

It's time for the holidays so it's time for some woven holiday beetles...

Finishing & Re-Finishing

I am picky when it comes to hanging my tapestries.  I have an image in my mind of how my art should appear when on the wall...and if it isn't right I never like it.  And if I don't like it rarely will anyone else see it. 

 I completed a small tapestry; perhaps eight inches by eight inches back in 2008.  It was an experimental piece woven with cassette tape - books on tape for the ATA small format show.   I never really took to the piece; due to the nature of the weft, cassette tape, the warp lines were wavy and there was a visible pull in as I completed the piece in what I imagine was hurried boredom.  It showed in the ATA exhibit but never again.  I could never figure out how to hang it. 

Earlier this year I finally 'finished' the piece; by finding an acceptable way for it to hang on the wall.  I wrote about it here.  After hanging a bit, I realized this was not quite the right solution.  It was not hung to last; I really could not exhibit, donate or gift it.  The edges of the tapestry began to look sloppy which accentuated the pull in.  The Velcro would occasionally fall off and the glass was way too many reflections for a room with as many windows as I have.

So this week I 're-finished' the piece.  This time I wired  the tapestry to a black wooden board which hangs freely with wire in the box frame.  The black board provides a straight edge on each side so the pull in, although there, is not distracting.  The glass was replaced with plexi which still allows the sparkles of the material backing the piece to shine through and should allow it to be safely mailed. Having the tapestry hang away from the plexi glass provides a wonderful shadow which changes with the light and gives that feeling of the sun actually hovering above the horizon.

I think I may actually like this piece.