In my spare time I have been putting together a home-made countermarch loom at The Chicago Weaving School with Natalie Boyett and Emily Winter. I am planning to weave some beautiful blankets on this guy! Natalie acquired this loom by the woman who use to weave on it, it was made for her by her husband. There are no plans so we have been kind of just figuring out how to construct it as we go along. Emily and Natalie did the bulk of constructing it and I came in later to set up the harnesses and the the contraptions. The loom break is particularly interesting because none of us can figure out how it works! Should be interesting to weave on. (Or totally frustrating!)
The other night Mike and I were walking home from Lula cafe and this red balloon was floating down the street. Such a sweet visual.
Weaving has been slow lately. I am fully back in the swing of working my real job and participating in my life in Chicago again. So the windows of time that I have to weave and work on my collection are very slim. I feel very frustrated by this, as weaving can be a slow a process I can't crank out work as quickly as I would like to. So I am teetering in this place where I am ordering materials piece by piece and making them as I can, I want to get past this and be able to design every thing and order everything I need and just move through the work. But time, economics and more time are always the weighty factor. I am extremely behind on my kickstarter woven gifts and as a result do not feel the collection will be ready by fall. IN fact I have barely made a dent in it. I have been working on a business plan to form a small business with my woven goods. I write and re write and research over and over. With how slow production is I wonder if I will be able to keep up with demand, or even if there will be a demand? For now I am in a place of frustration but hope to move past this and just get done what I can, when I can. . .
I graduated with my BFA in Fibers from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago in 2003. There was a girl in some of my classes and part of the BFA thesis exhibition that I was in by the name of Becca Mann. Becca makes unbelievably stunning drawings and paintings that are inspired by old photographs. For some reason something made me think about her work the other day and I decided to do a search online. I found her website and was amazed by the remarkable delicacy of light in her work. It looks like she has not made any paintings in a while or perhaps not updated her website, however here are a few works from 2006-2010. I absolutely love Becca's work and hope there is more to see form her in 2012. Such a talented lady!
