Arrowmont Workshops

Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts Summer 2010

The second half and last of my Summer workshop adventure was spent at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, located in Gatlinburg Tennessee. Here I participated in two one-week workshops. Here on the left is the iconic Red Barn, the dormitory where I stayed during my time in Tennessee. Arrowmont has a beautiful campus, wonderful galleries, and so many many great people. The best part of Arrowmont was, of course, the workshops.

Catharine Ellis- Woven Shibori

My first week of class was with Catharine Ellis. We learned how to make woven shibori, which was one of those things that after I learned how to do it I thought to myself- why did I never think of doing this?! It is a really wonderful technique for surface design. For those who are reading and do not know about weaving or shibori, I will explain. On the right is a four harness floor loom. When weaving fabric from yarn the loom keeps the warp threads (vertical threads attached to the loom) under tension. The loom also separates and opens up the warp threads so that a weft shot (horizontal threads that are woven through the warp to create fabric) can travel through and create the weave structure. Shibori is a Japanese surface design technique where threads are stitched into a fabric and then pulled together, the fabric puckers and bunches (picture tie-dye). The places where threads have been pulled and bunched together resist dye in a dye bath. When the fabric is taken out of the bath and the threads are cut, patterns emerge in places the dye could not reach. This class was exciting because I knew how to weave, I knew how to stitch shibori, but doing both simultaneously? Genius.

Here is woven shibori in action, the supplemental threads to be used for binding the shibori are woven into the fabric as it is created on the loom. The Shibori threads create floats seen here.

Another component of this class was the use of natural dyes. Before this class the only natural dye I had experience with was indigo- so this was a big learning experience for me. Here is one of the yellow dye sources we used, Fustic, a tropical hardwood from Central America which makes a beautiful yellow. We learned about dye sources, how to achieve a variety of colors, and about different dye applications, all using natural ingredients.

Other dyes we used in class: madder root for orange, cochineal insects for fuchsia/red, marigold flowers for bright yellow, logwood for purple/grey, indigo for blue and chestnut for brown. Dyes were layered and additional ingredients were used to alter colors.

The end result- here are a few of my samples hanging outside to dry after being dyed rinsed and having the shibori threads removed. There really was a great variety of colors that we achieved by using only a handful of dyes and layering on colors.

A close up of one of my samples. This sample was dyed with marigolds and indigo.

Our class decorated one of the walls in the weaving room with finished samples. Unbinding shibori fabric is like opening a gift, each time you undo the threads and pull open the fabric there is almost always something unexpected. Because this class lasted just a week there was only time for samples, but I have great notes and gained knowledge to carry into future projects.

Chad Alice Hagen- Felting and Beyond

Week two at Arrowmont was spent in class with Chad Alice Hagen. In her class we worked with needle-punched batts of felt. After felting the batts we worked with acid dyes to dye and over-dye the sample pieces, layering up the surface of the felt with different dye techniques. Here on the left are the pieces of felt we made after their first dye bath, just the first of many process to come.

Chad brought with her a table full of various pieces of metal, wood blocks, clips and ties with which we clamped and bound our pieces of felt and over-dyed. We repeated this process over and over again to build interesting surface designs on our samples.

Here are a collection of samples all bound, clipped and clamped, ready to go into another dye bath. Wherever the fabric has been covered the dye will be resisted. This was one of the dye techniques we learned to change the surface of the felt.

When all the layers of dye and various resists have been applied to the fabric we got something like this (right). This is one of my samples from the class. Because the pieces we were working with had so many layers they all took on interesting colorations and each came out completely different, out of the whole class there were no two samples that ended up completely alike.

Here is my work table full of completed samples. Each student in the class ended up with a table full like this half-way through the class.

After we had finished dying all our felt we started embellishing. We embroidered, beaded and further transformed the surfaces of our samples. This is a shot of a corner of my workspace in one of its less cluttered moments.

At this point in the class we began assembling the fabrics we made into pins, pendants, wrap books and (my favorite) coptic books. Here is a picture of my miniature coptic book being assembled, I had just begun putting the button hole edging stitch onto the covers.

By the end of the class I had not only a collection of colorful sample fabrics, I also had a small collection of books, pins and brooches.

Here is a close-up of the spine of my little coptic book. I learned so much about surface design while at Arrowmont. Learning how to bind books was a plus- I was not expecting to learn this when I came, but I am really glad I did. I can definitely see myself making more books- I am still brainstorming what else could be incorporated into this, no decisions yet, but-more to come.

That is all for my summer workshops. I will leave this post with a few pictures of a hike I took with some friends at the Ijams Nature Conservatory in Knoxville the weekend between class sessions. (Because It was such a beautiful hike!) I'm a little sad my workshop summer is over, but it has left me inspired and given me plenty of ideas to work from for time to come. I am sure that this has been the most amazing summer of my life. Thanks so much to my instructors at Arrowmont for sharing their knowledge. It was such a great time!

Much thanks as always to the Windgate Charitable Foundation and the Center for Craft Creativity and Design for making this learning experience possible for me. I will continue to update here with new projects, so keep checking back. I will be moving at the end of this month into a space large enough to accommodate my very own fiber studio- YAY! I will post about this- pictures of the studio space as it is pieced together and of course new work. Thanks for reading!

I have posted these links previously in my last post, but because I am a textiles gal and I really really like repetition- I'm reposting to make sure you all click and maybe go see one of these shows if you can make it!

Currently at the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport check out the Exhibition Fiber Art Unraveled: Material and Process up Now until February 21, 2010 in Terminal 4 Level 3, 8 cases of work. There is some really great work there including some excellent work by some friends of mine, and one of my pieces as well.

Also- upcoming please check out this site for details about the Hands of Korea exhibitions. The site has some photos of some really amazing work, if you are able to visit any of these exhibitions please do. I will have a piece in the Joomchi exhibition as part of the international artist addition when the show travels to Korea, so- friends and family in Korea, please visit!