Weaverly

Start of Another Collaborative Book

It's time to do another collaborative book with Bruce. He has assembled a collection of photos from our Oregon Coast trip on a disc for me. 

I'm now editing them and dropping them into a page layout I previously prepared for such books, and when all 87 photos are arranged, I'll put them on a flash drive and take them to our local mailing center. There they have a wonderful color printer whose output we've come to trust. I'll take the finished pages and fold, pierce, and assemble them for coptic binding.

 

I haven't yet decided on the cover materials and design; that's next.

Rigid Heddle, Breadmaking & Miyazake

The kids came over today, and the time flew by. They are bundles of energy; no slacking allowed on my part. Karl wove for a while on the rigid heddle loom, and Catalina knitted two more rows on her scarf, with some help.

 

Then we played a game of Battleship, made split pea soup, and kneaded up a batch of bread. In between times the DVD player was going. We don't normally spend so much time in front of the TV when they are here, but the weather is still too beastly hot to play outdoors. Today's fare was three Miyazaki anime features: Porco Rosso, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Castle in the Sky. 

The Secret is Out: Weave!

That incredibly well-kept secret, the woven animation project, is now no longer a secret. The movie, entitled Weave!, was introduced at the Complex Weavers Seminars held last week in Albuquerque. Although we can't release the completed video on the web until August 22 (read on), I can share with you my introductory remarks at the screening. When the time is right, I'll post a link to the movie here and will give it to Complex Weavers for their website, too.

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Weave!

Welcome to the world premiere of Weave!, an animated film like no other.  Disney and Pixar–eat your hearts out!

I’ll tell you a little bit of the background of this movie, and then we’ll get straight to the screening.

First of all, this is a collaborative project by twelve intrepid weavers. Some of them are here tonight. Please stand and be recognized: Ruth Blau, Margaret Coe, Matt Eardley, Sue Farley, Bonnie Inouye, Penny Peters, Neki Rivera, Sandra Rude, Alice Schlein, Pat Stewart, Janet Stollnitz, and Margaret Thorson. 

I first got the idea of animating woven cloth after seeing a knitted animation on YouTube. It was by the Canadian band Tricot Machine, and consisted of hundreds of frames of knitted imagery, all scanned and assembled into a short animation called Les Peaux des Lievres.  It was beautiful. Weavers could do that, I thought.

I experimented with a few short videos of my own, by grabbing frames from existing videos and weaving the images on my TC-1 jacquard loom, then scanning and reassembling the frames into new videos. The process worked, and I realized that dobby weavers could do this kind of animation too.

But the process was very labor-intensive, and I knew I needed help. I put out a call on WeaveTech, and twelve other weavers agreed to join in the project. These folks are all over the map - East Coast, West Coast, and one weaver in Spain. It was a perfect internet-based project.

The ground rules were simple: weave ten or more panels in black and white yarn. The panels had to be of a size to fit on a scanner bed, and each panel in a set had to be slightly different so that when assembled into a video, they would appear to be animated. The color palette was limited to black and white in order to impose some unity on an otherwise extremely varied collection of work.

We had two jacquard weavers, and dobby weavers with 16, 24, and 40 shaft looms who submitted work. Some weavers paired up, with one designing and the other weaving. Others designed and wove their own panels. Some did both. The weaving deadline was January 1, 2010. 

After I received all the weaving, I scanned the panels and assembled them into a movie with the software Photo to Movie, an easy-to-use program that runs on Mac or Windows. The program is really designed to make slide shows of the Ken Burns variety, but by changing the timing of the slides to 1/10 of a second each, I was able to force the scans to run at 10 frames per second, a reasonable rate for an animation. 

When the visuals were finished, we had the very good luck to have the services of a talented musician/composer, Hank Childers, to provide the sound track. Hank also happens to be the husband of Marg Coe, one of the project members. Thank you, Hank! 

I tested the finished movie on my grandchildren, and they pronounced it awesome, so I knew we had a hit on our hands.

It is an amazing four minutes long, and we’ll get to it right now. But first I want to share some fantastic news with you. At the suggestion of Penny Peters, we entered the video in ITAB, the First International Techstyle Art Biennial 2010: Exploring the Intersection of Technology and Fiber Art, opening at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles on August 22, and it was accepted! 

So thank you to all the wonderful artists who had the vision to know we could create something great together. It was a privilege to work with all of you.

You can see the woven panels in a special exhibition right here at Complex Weavers. It will be up through Wednesday. Thanks to Ruth, Janet, Marg, and Sandra for organizing this exhibition.

And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Weave!

[The movie was then shown to the 200+ people in attendance, and received a standing ovation.]

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Here are a few photos (courtesy of Bruce) of the woven pieces shown in tandem with the video:

 

                        

Doubletribal

The yardage exhibit at Convergence was hung on a mezzanine balcony, and made an impressive display when viewed from the lobby/registration area of the Albuquerque Convention Center. It was hard to see details of individual pieces from the lobby, but the curious could go to the mezzanine and look at (and touch) the handling swatches up close.

In the above photo, my yardage, entitled Doubletribal, is the fourth from the right. Can't see much detail? Maybe this will help: here are some other views of the piece, a doublewoven plain weave networked on a 40-shaft threading.

 

Eastward Bound/ Westward Bound

Barbara Walker and I entered the Small Expressions exhibition at Convergence with a collaborative piece entitled Eastward Bound/ Westward Bound. The piece is a hand bound book with jacquard woven cover and a ply-split braid band and globe knot button. The binding and cover are mine, and the band and button are Barb's. The piece won the HGA Award.

Photography was not allowed in the exhibition, but here is Barb's personal photograph of the piece. Unfortunately, Barb's name on the exhibition label was mistakenly listed as "Mary Walker." We eventually got the label corrected to read "Alice Schlein and Barbara Walker." 

When I got home I opened the CD provided by Convergence, and looked for the photograph of the piece. It was there, but attributed only to me, not to both Barb and me as it should have been. 

Well, I'd like the whole world to know that the book Eastward Bound/ Westward Bound is a COLLABORATION between Barbara Walker and me. It features Barb's gorgeous ply-split braiding, and it was a joy to work with Barb on this book. So much so that we created another book, which we offered in the Complex Weavers auction. This book also features a jacquard woven cover and ply-split band and globe knot button. The binding is coptic style. Photo credit Barbara Walker.

 

The minimum bid on this book was not met at the auction, so this book is once again out in the world and will be entered shortly in another exhibition. Stay tuned.

The Antidote to Confusion

"Washing dishes is the antidote to confusion. I know that for a fact." 

    ––Maira Kalman

I agree wholeheartedly. I would add that doing laundry is also an antidote to confusion. We just arrived home after four days on the road from Albuquerque, and this is what awaits me:

 

(Laundry is a fiber experience, so this is not exactly off topic.)

My computer failed just before the start of the Complex Weavers Seminars, and for the past two weeks I've been restricted to thumb-blogging on my iPhone. Fortunately I was able to borrow Bruce's computer for my class presentations, and I hope to write some fuller descriptions of my experiences in Albuquerque in the days ahead. I'll just say that CW was a fabulous experience and you weavers out there who aren't already members, please consider joining. Even if you can't attend the seminars, they have wonderful study groups, a library, a journal, and many other perks. More info here.

Time to feed another load into the washer, but I'll close by posting this picture one of my workshop participants took of me during my double twill presentation. Scary, isn't it?

Tupelo, Mississippi

Waiting at a railroad crossing. Thunderclouds gather.

Fort Smith

Evening on the banks of the Arkansas River.

Wilburton, OK

Clinton, Oklahoma

Lunch stop. Basic, but good.