One of the things you notice when you read the websites of Scottish makers is that a lot of them cite the landscape as their source of inspiration. And why not? Scotland is a beautiful country. I live in the middle of a city but can still see wonderful views of hills and water from my windows. I love the open air, and a walk in the woods or along the beach really refreshes me and clears my head. But I’ve been thinking about this a lot and it is quite clear to me that I am not a landscape-inspired weaver… in the sense that the colours and textures of the landscape are not what drive me to the loom or inform what I want to weave — indeed, the visual sources I have worked with so far are almost all man-made.
As I said in an earlier post, I have been planning the next stage of my weaving practice. One of the things I have been considering is the selection of a theme that I can work with for an extended period of time. I would like to develop a body of work which includes several different strands but which are linked around a common idea, so the idea has to be one that I am really passionate about and offer enough variety to keep me engaged and the work lively and interesting. And much as I love the landscape of Scotland, that isn’t it! No, I have an altogether different kind of landscape in mind and — having dragged you through this much of my internal meandering — I should probably tell you what it is, but I’m not quite ready for that yet… Bear with me for a while, though, and all will be revealed.
In other news, I was lucky to make it to the Complex Weavers study day organised by Wendy Morris in London on Friday. Very lucky. Fortunately, I had travelled down on Thursday, right before the heavy rain washed away the railway line… I was fully expecting to have a complicated and prolonged journey home on Saturday but was actually quite impressed with how quickly they got things back together again. And in between I enjoyed a really stimulating day on doubleweave with Jennifer Moore. I’ve got a lot lot lot of notes to ponder.
“the woven landscape” was posted by Cally on 1 July 2012 at http://callybooker.co.uk
Dorothy Stewart
Yes, isn’t it interesting the way different things inspire us. Jan at the weft has been encouraging me to have a story with my weaving and I struggled with that. She picked up on my interest in nature and has lead me by the nose through colour, structure and then texture. I am not at all easy with it but can see I have ‘evolved’ slightly !
Will be interested to see how your inspiration unfolds !
D
Cally
It will be an interesting experiment. Having worked with visual themes so far, I’m stretching myself a bit by choosing something more conceptual… not sure how it will work, but that’s what makes it worth trying!
Meg in Nelson
“Academia” – now that’s a landscape! :->
Cally
You’re not a million miles from what I’m thinking… Maybe half a million, or a couple of hundred thousand, but not a million!