✻

Name: Charlotte Wakefield (she/her)

Studio location: South East London, Home Studio

Website / social links: wovenform.com, @wovenform

Loom type or tool preference: 24 shaft Louet Magic Dobby Loom

Years weaving: 11 years weaving / 3 years as a business

1. How did you discover weaving and was what your greatest resource as a beginner?

During my Art Foundation Course I had my first attempts at weaving, just on a wooden frame and the freedom and excitement of not having a plan and just seeing what happens really appealed to me. Once I got to University and had a go on one of the Ashford Table Looms, I was completely sold on weaving, with the physical practice and the endless possibilities for experimentation, through fibre, structure and colour. My greatest resource at University were my tutors, technicians and the other students. They were and still are an invaluable source of information.  

2. How do you define your practice – do you consider yourself an artist / craftsperson / weaver / designer / general creative or a combination of those? Is this definition important to you?

First and foremost, I would consider myself a weaver/artist, but I do think when you run your own business you become a person with many hats, so it is much harder to define yourself. The element of my work which I get the most enjoyment and excitement from is weaving so that always will be at the heart of what I do.

3. What is your creative process, from the initial idea to the finished piece? Are there specific weave structures, looms, or fibers that are important to your process?

I am constantly taking photos of architecture and details of textures when I am on my travels. When I am sitting down to start designing, I like to pull these photos out and see what speaks to me. I love to zone in on different textures, colours and patterns and pull-out sections which inspire me. When it comes to weaving, I like to be very free, so I will pull together some ideas for the warp, take lots of different yarns off my shelves and then sit down and have a play around to see what works. Each piece I hand weave is an individual one-off piece, this enables me to be really experimental and just weave and see what happens.

4. Does your work have a conceptual purpose or greater meaning? If so, do you center your making around these concepts?

A fundamental thing for me is to make the world a kinder, more beautiful, considered place. Each piece is handwoven to size so there is very little waste, and we work with a range of mills and factories using up their deadstock, which is luscious yarn leftover from their production which would normally be wasted. The textiles and fashion industry can be so wasteful so anything I can do to help is really important to me.

5. What is your favorite part of the weaving process and why? What’s your least favorite?

My favourite part of the weaving process is once the loom is all set up and ready to start weaving. Sitting there with the blank canvas of the warp in front of me with all my ideas running through my head, this part is so exciting to me. I find weaving really therapeutic and relaxing, which is especially important in the world we are living in at the moment. I love the slow nature of the work and how much time and love is put into it. My least favourite part of weaving is probably warp winding, this can take a long time especially if you are working with a thin fibre and I am always too keen to get the warp on to start weaving!

6. Do you sell your work or make a living from weaving? If so, what does that look like and how has that affected your studio practice?

Yes, I sell my work on my website and in a few stores across the world and I do a lot of commission work for people which I really enjoy. I am working towards the future of being able to weave full time, but I currently have a part-time job too, it helps to take a bit of pressure off me when it comes to finances. I hope in the future to be able to have a studio/shop space where people can visit, experience weaving first hand, have a coffee, chat all things design.

7. Where do you find inspiration?

I think everything can be an inspiration but for me architecture is the gift that keeps on giving. One building alone can be the source of so much inspiration and spark off ideas for an entire collection. I love the combinations of colours, textures and patterns used to make the built world so stunning and exciting. London is such a great place to take in architecture as every road is different to the previous one, we have a really unique mix of architecture built through different times and I love to go for a walk with my camera and see what I come across. 

8. What other creatives do you admire – weavers, artists, entrepreneurs – and why?

I admire hugely anyone who is creating in their own way and making it work for them, whatever their skill or craft may be. I admire friend Alessandra of AEAND massively, I have seen her develop her business and craft in an incredible and authentic way from doing New Designers One Year On together to her work being on the front cover of Elle Decoration last year, it is amazing to see.

9. If you could no longer weave, what would you do instead?

I would still want to be doing something creative, I think I would probably try my hand at pottery. My in-laws have recently retired from running their own pottery business, so I have a good amount, I do not have a huge amount of natural talent, but I really love it. Love getting stuck in and working with my hands. 

✻

Name: Veerle Melis (she/her)

Studio location: Brussels, Belgium

Website / social links: veerlemelis.net, @veerlemelis

Loom type or tool preference: a few nails in the wall

Years weaving: 3

1. How did you discover weaving and was what your greatest resource as a beginner?

I was on Holiday in Athens with a friend. Shortly before heading back to the airport we walked into this carpet shop, where I found myself saying out loud that I really wanted to learn how to make carpets. The carpet salesman invited me to come back, so I did. A month later I was introduced to Xaris who runs a carpet restoration atelier and is kind of a walking carpet encyclopedia. Over the course of a week he taught me the basics of knotting and weaving and showed me some brilliant carpets and tapestries. During that week I became reacquainted with the textiles DNA in my family. My grandparents were workers in Tilburg’s textiles industry, and passed on many stories as well as their textile crafts to me when I was little. I never imagined textiles would land on my path again, after having finished my theoretical studies, but as soon as I sat behind the improvised loom in Athens everything fell into place. Even though I learned the most by self-experimenting with different techniques, this short apprenticeship in Athens was the push I needed to come back into touch with textiles.

2. How do you define your practice – do you consider yourself an artist / craftsperson / weaver / designer / general creative or a combination of those? Is this definition important to you?

I consider myself equally an artist and craftsperson. Craft holds an incredibly important place in my artistic practice and research. My work can be seen as an ongoing meditation on the ingenuity of (human) nature and on what it means to create. Performing countless repetitive gestures, I learn from what my material can and can not do and gain insights from little mistakes, slips of attention and all sorts of different associations. My work wouldn’t exist without getting my own hands involved.

3. Describe your first experience with weaving.

When cleaning up my grandparents’ attic, my grandmother handed me the small loom my grandfather had built for me when I was little. I, however don’t have any memory of using it. For me my first experience weaving was in Athens in the workshop of Xaris.

4. What is your creative process, from the initial idea to the finished piece? Are there specific weave structures, looms, or fibers that are important to your process?

My creative process is one ongoing thing that flows onwards transcending the different works. Generally the ideas for new works arise from insights in the making process of another work. I see my works as very interconnected and telling the same story. Even though techniques, colours and materials may differ, they all reflect on certain aspects of my practice. From my own role as an artist and maker to the context in which I make or my surroundings, inspiration, materials and their histories and other foreseeable and unforeseeable elements; I am interested in and try to be mindful of every tiny aspect of the process.

5. Does your work have a conceptual purpose or greater meaning? If so, do you center your making around these concepts?

My goal through making, is to unravel what it means to create. Not solely on a personal level, or in an art context, but also more in general on a ‘world’ scale. By making and engaging with every aspect of it with open eyes, I feel I come to a sort of belly button understanding of the unfolding of our world and creativity as a phenomenon. My work is both an exploration of these topics and processes as well as a representation. Since I am interested in creation, my work takes a lot of inspiration from different historical and contemporary (textile) craft practices. I find the functional, decorative, artistic or architectural all equally interesting and valuable. 

6. What is your favorite part of the weaving process and why? What’s your least favorite?

Although some of my work is inspired by weaving, my techniques often are shaped by combining different textile fields. In my nets for instance, I interlace elements of weaving and lace making. 

Something all of my works have in common is the meditative repetitiveness of the gestures that shape my works. There are many good moments in the making process. From the first satisfying sketch, to the meditative, repetitive flow, to finding new technical solutions or discovering little valuable mistakes. The part I love the most is when the work is coming together towards the end and truly reveals itself. It is always surprising and different than envisioned at the beginning and will start to feel more like it is a thing of its own. 

My least favourite part is when I can’t seem to resolve a work, or the material doesn’t behave the way I hoped it would. But then still I believe there is something to learn there. For instance, I bought many glass beads to weave a net with, but it didn’t work the way I had envisioned. At the end I made something completely different with the beads. Having them forced me to explore different possibilities that I wouldn’t have figured out if I hadn’t bought them.

7. Do you sell your work or make a living from weaving? If so, what does that look like and how has that affected your studio practice?

I do sell my work, but can’t make a living out of it (yet). Artist funding, a side job and commissioned works. 

8. Where do you find inspiration?

Everywhere. In nature, in the city, in watching bugs or the flow of a river, in conversations with friends, in loose stones in the pavement. In make-shift shelters or weird restaurant signs. In archeology, contemporary art, miscommunication, bureaucracy. In everything made by humankind and nature. 

9. What other creatives do you admire – weavers, artists, entrepreneurs – and why?

Wiener werkstatte, especially for their lace. Nona Inescu, a great young contemporary artist. I envy her work. Rodin for his sculptures, and Niki de Saint Phalle for her habitable sculptures. Anni Albers for obvious reasons. Hans Erni for his line drawings and Rosemary Mayer and Valentine Schlegel for their abilities to create worlds as women in a time that didn’t allow women to build worlds so much. And Laila Gohar for her relentless creativity with food. 

10. If you could no longer weave, what would you do instead?

If I could no longer work with textiles I would probably find another repetitive medium to slowly build works with. But I just can’t imagine that though to be honest. 

Studio location: Chicago, Illinois

Website / social links: bryanabibbs.com, @bryanabibbs

Loom type or tool preference: Handmade frame looms and Schacht’s Lilli Loom

Years weaving: 9

1. How did you discover weaving and was what your greatest resource as a beginner?

When I entered my first year at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I always thought that I would walk out as a "masterful" abstract painter. I loved using color and texture to express a time, a feeling, or an emotion. But in my second semester, I saw the "Introduction to Fibers and Material Studies" class. After reading the course description, I became really curious about what the class was about and hoped to learn quilting, since this was something my grandfather, whom I call my Papa George, had done when he was younger, while in Alabama. Although we didn't learn quilting, we learned knitting, crochet, natural dyeing, embroidery, and finally landed on weaving. At first, I didn't think I would like weaving because of how labor-intensive it was, but after sitting at the loom for the first time to weave a sample, that's when I became hooked. Immediately after taking that class, I made sure to take other classes that could further my interest in weaving. I think my greatest "resource" was learning that there were no boundaries and that I had the freedom to make "mistakes" and experiment.

2. How do you define your practice – do you consider yourself an artist / craftsperson / weaver / designer / general creative or a combination of those? Is this definition important to you?

I've always considered myself a weaver or textile artist. My work has always been dedicated to materiality and objects. But now that I use other processes, such as Polaroid photography and printmaking, my practice has expanded beyond weaving while still staying true to my dedication to preserving, archiving, and documenting lived experiences and memories.

3. Describe your first experience with weaving.

In the Introduction to Fibers and Material Studies class taught by Jerry Bleem, whom I still talk about today, we learned to weave a 10" x 10" square on the loom. I remember that feeling of using the boat shuttle and being drawn in by its repetitive movement. It had gotten to the point where I had become relaxed. And cutting the weaving off the loom for the first time was such an amazing feeling. I was so proud of that small weaving with stripes in various earth-toned colors, and how it turned out. I even remember being so excited about it that I shared it with my parents. In the remaining years at SAIC, I stayed in fibers and continued studying weaving, eventually learning to spin and card fibers, which is something I do now in most of my work.

4. What is your creative process, from the initial idea to the finished piece? Are there specific weave structures, looms, or fibers that are important to your process?

My work is guided by my lived experiences and objects; I’ve never sketched or designed a piece. Since returning to my arts practice full-time in 2020, I decided to use only plain weave to keep the viewers’ focus on color, texture, and material. There’s no specific fiber I use; I really enjoy using everything and experimenting.

For example, the small-scale weavings in the Journal Series. The series is an ongoing daily weaving practice that has served as an archive since 2020. These journal entries are woven on my Schacht Lilli looms, use only plain weave, and document time, location, and daily observations—both mental and physical—through everyday objects, materials, and fibers. I’ve used a variety of materials, including tree fungi, lanyards, and, most recently, my grandparents’ belongings, such as my Papa George’s hospital blanket, from which I had removed all of the weft. The series has captured moments from the COVID-19 pandemic, travels, caregiving, and the recent passing of both my grandparents.

Whereas large-scale weavings, also woven in plain weave, are made on a handmade frame loom that I make myself with wood and nails. All of the fiber in these weavings is spun on a Louet S15 spinning wheel, and sometimes uses a Louet XL 72 tpi drum carder to achieve color blending and textures for yarn. Inspired by my background in abstract painting, my large-scale weavings use texture and reference memories, color, and, recently, architectural elements — bathroom tiles and windows — from my grandparents’ home.

5. Does your work have a conceptual purpose or greater meaning? If so, do you center your making around these concepts?

My work reflects on my lived experiences of trauma, caregiving, and grief. Telling these stories isn’t easy due to social stigma, which motivates my practice and inspires me to create exhibition programming and workshops where people can share experiences, be heard, and feel seen. The slow processes of weaving and printmaking provide calm, giving me space and clarity to process these experiences.

Most of my work has centered around being a survivor of domestic violence and the aftermath of going through that for nearly a decade. But in October 2023, my work shifted due to caregiving for my Papa George and Mema with my mom, until my Papa George’s passing on December 18, 2023, and my Mema’s on August 25, 2024. Since I now live in their home, my work has been entirely focused on preserving their stories and our shared memories, and along the way, it’s helping me figure out why I respond to trauma and grief the way I do.

And when dealing with these heavy experiences, I find peace in the making and joy in doing other things related to my practice, such as teaching and designing weaving programs in other organizations and institutions.

6. What is your favorite part of the weaving process and why? What’s your least favorite?

My favorite part of weaving is the repetition and the gradual building of each work. There’s something about the slow progression of weaving that really excites me. When taking polaroids for my archive, I get so much joy from seeing the day-to-day progress of each large-scale piece. And because I use objects and materials that have meaning, I always have this intense urge to document and preserve. There’s so much room for exploration in weaving, which I didn’t always feel as a painter.

My least favorite part isn’t the weaving or spinning processes, but the backing I do for each large-scale weaving to make sure it’s ready for an exhibition installation. It feels like it takes so long, even though it’s nowhere near the length of time it takes for me to complete a weaving.

7. Do you sell your work or make a living from weaving? If so, what does that look like and how has that affected your studio practice?

I am very dedicated to art education, and I have had the pleasure of teaching weaving in various organizations and institutions. Watching others weave, often for the first time, brings me so much joy! Especially when I learn that people have continued to weave beyond my workshops. So this is one way I make a living from weaving.

With my studio practice, I’ve learned that a few years after making the Journal Series, I like to live with my work for a little while before it goes to a collector, especially since my work is conceptually about trauma, grief, and mental health. I’ve been really fortunate to have my work in wonderful private collections where the collectors truly care about me, support me, and care about the preservation of my work. Even in public collections, such as Delta Airlines O’Hare SkyClub, and most recently, the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I’ve been met with so much kindness, generosity, and care, which are the most important things to me when selling a work.

As Jen Torwudzo-Stroh said when writing about my practice in Newcity’s Breakout Artists 2024: Chicago Next Generation of Image Makers magazine issue: “Art-making is work. Processing emotions is work, too. This is why her ultimate goal of art making isn’t to produce a piece of art that will sell for a specific dollar amount. For Bryana, the goal of the art-making is to work through complicated feelings. Processing her grief and loss is what drives her.” And what Jen wrote will always remain true for my practice.

8. Where do you find inspiration?

My inspiration comes from objects, memories, and lived experiences. When I quit my retail job in late 2019 to become a full-time artist, I hadn’t created any work since graduating from SAIC in 2014. Yet, even though I hadn’t made any artwork, I always kept 4 or 5 journaling books to document things. Throughout my childhood and young adulthood, I consistently wrote down my feelings, making sure to note the date and time I started and finished each entry. I remember my very first journal as a kid was covered with a denim and tie-dye print, the one I had as a teenager had Tinker Bell on the cover, and when I became a young adult, I bought a leather journal from a local shop. Every day after school or hanging out with friends, I would write in these journals. Because I’ve always been an over thinker, journaling helped me release the joy, sadness, anger, and messiness that might have been going on in my life. And I still have each of those journals today.

Once I began the Journal Series in July 2020, it made sense to me, since journaling allowed me to process lived experiences and has been beneficial throughout my life. Looking back, even when I was towards the end of Undergrad, I created works using color, imagery, line, and forms to document time, place, and emotion. So even though handwritten journaling has always been a part of my life, it’s done differently now. Instead of using words and journaling books, I use my Lilli Loom, colors, and materials that are deeply meaningful to me and that show where I am mentally and physically. I can immediately look at a Journal Series entry and see what I was feeling in that moment, not just through the use of materials, but in the way my “hand” is presented within the woven journal. And although my work is specific to me, I always hope that when viewers see this work, they will see their own stories and resonate.

9. What other creatives do you admire – weavers, artists, entrepreneurs – and why?

Sheila Hicks, Suzanne Tick, and Dorothy Liebes are artists whom I've been really inspired by. The use of objects and experimentation within their works has always been exciting to me. I also deeply admire the incredible work of Erin M. Riley, Suchitra Mattai, Molly Haynes, Natasha Khiev, and Christy Matson, among so many others.

10. If you could no longer weave, what would you do instead?

I hope to work in the arts in another capacity.

This interview has not been edited and appears as dictated by the artist.

✻

Name: Yasuaki Kuroda

Studio location: Shibuya, Tokyo

Website / social links: yasuakikuroda.com, @yasuaki_kuroda

Loom type or tool preference: 16 shaft Louet Megado Loom

Years weaving: 14

1. How did you discover weaving and was what your greatest resource as a beginner?

I had enrolled into the department of industrial, interior and craft design at the art university from where I graduated.  We were required to pick our major from ceramic, wood, textile, metal, glass, interior and industrial by the second semester of the second year.  I considered each major but could not decide which one truly called out to me, so I ended up creating a ghost leg, and letting the fate decide my future major.  The result, textile.

Because of this, I did not know much regarding textiles during the initial phase of majoring in textiles.  As a child, I always loved and savoured reading a variety of books on so many different topics. I remember the words “織る” (o-ru) appearing in so many books, even though it had nothing to do with weaving and textile. For these words, I remember being curious about what the differences and the commonalities were.  Reflecting over the past and my childhood, I think it was this curiosity that became the source of my interest in Textile.  As time goes by, my curiosity and interest in the weaves between the word (text) and Textile (weaving) grew, matured and developed into the Knot. From here, I have been mastering my textile art projects for 14 years.

On a side note: Ghost leg is a popular children’s game in Japan, and it can be made very complex or simple. The shape of a Ghost leg resembles, in a way, a spider’s web. The format of ghost leg appears almost like a textile. 

Perhaps, subconsciously, I was aware of the complexity and philosophical nature of weaving and textile.  The Greek mythology protagonist, Arachne, is an ethymology of a spider.  In the Roman poet Ovid (43 BCE–17 CE)’s poetry book, “Metamorphosis” Arachne was a highly skilled weaver, who challenged Athena, the goddess of wisdom and craft.  Athena was very jealous of the flawless tapestry which mortal Arachne made, and later on, her appearance was changed to a spider.

2. How do you define your practice – do you consider yourself an artist / craftsperson / weaver / designer / general creative or a combination of those? Is this definition important to you?

I consider myself as the medium I weave, and therefore I am the artist.  I observe and discover the intricate nature of universe through the weaving, and through the act of weaving and textile, I become part of the whole. The origin of text (as a sentence) was Latin, texere (weaving), textile was a language system for communicating and recording events before the development of words and sentences. Although we tend to define and identify ourselves through our words and language today, textile was used as language during the pre-linguistic developmental era.

There is no “right” or “superior” distinction/ differentiation between the expression by textile or expression by words: the textile provides the different perspectives, and recognise alternative view points from our language and words.  I exist as a medium and knot together between the language and textile.  I am an artist, by interpreting the textile into words through my project.

3. Describe your first experience with weaving.

During the first year of Textile Major practical classes, I was taught the initial set-up and the foundation of weaving.  At this time, since I had only started learning about the art of textile and weaving, I was curious and interested more in the structure, restrictions and limitations of the loom, rather than the textile itself.   When there was an assignment that gave me a greater degree of “freedom” during the creation of a textile, my main focus became to bypass the restriction and limitations of a traditional loom. I developed a different kind of weaving equipment which resulted in a unique textile. This experience gave me a crucial transition from creating a “fabric” as a final product to textile itself as my style of art.

4. What is your creative process, from the initial idea to the finished piece? Are there specific weave structures, looms, or fibers that are important to your process?

There are no predefined designs or set destinations in my creation.  The process of creation has a similarity with the “Ghost Legs” (which I decided to use when I chose my major during the undergraduate university era), that everything is the result of my decision at that point in time.  In order to create a project, I have several hundred naturally dyed silk threads prepared in my studio, arranging warp, picking and choosing the weft.  By completion of the project, the numbers of decisions involved, are, thousands to tens of thousands.

It may seem that I am the subject and the sole authority of my creation, however, it is not only me who chooses the threads. The Threads themselves are the choice I make.  I am the subject of the thread, but the thread is also a subject that operates within me. Like a human evolves due to the choice of words he or she makes, the choices that we make shape today’s me and you.  Like ‘Me’ is a record of the choices I made, what appears in this textile made of thousands of threads is what I am.  

Textile is a constellation of the choices I made. Since there is no pre-defined design and set destination; for example that is including what time I woke up in the morning and what I ate for the day.  The decision I made influenced the colour of the thread I chose.  A thread contains unique essence, memories and the trace from the silkworms, plants and trees, the soil, water and air that have nurtured all of them.  It means that the single thread carries and passes the tremendous number of choices and history they carried.

As the choice of words we use to communicate differs and forms the personal identity between individuals, we are the constellation and the products of the choice we make.  The process of weaving I create and expression itself is myself, therefore the textile is me.  Same time, the thread (silkworms, trees, soil, water, air, time, memory and choice) has individually unique text, and we are marrying our text into ourselves, and textile into the text.

In my textile, thread and the textile are not separate entities and existence.  I am the thread, and threads are me.  I am, threads are, us.  It is the daily practice of dialogue.

5. Does your work have a conceptual purpose or greater meaning? If so, do you center your making around these concepts?

As the origin of the text (as a sentence) was Latin, texere (weaving).  The oldest letter (character) recorded is approximately 5,000 years ago, and the oldest existing textile created by using a tool was estimated at 10,000 years ago. It means that the textile was, by 5000 years, the foundation of a language system for communicating and recording events well before the development of words and sentences.

The act of creating a textile is based on the conversion of the binary process, 0 and 1. The dialogue made with natural thread becomes binary within the weaving. The process starts with the primordial split, at the same time, the practice of The Union, weaving, brings opposites together.

Describing myself as I [A] and thread as [B] is a very anthropocentric perspective in the world dominated by words.  In the textile, the threads (us) are 0, and at the same time we are 1. There is always a personal preference in the “right” or “wrong” side of the fabric, but there is no absolute “correct” or “incorrect” perspective in the textile.

The weaving proposes the perspectives that are not bound by the dichotomy, such as “self/other”, “subject/object”, “natural/artificial”, but in fact “us = world”.  It is a fundamental nexus for us to exist in the world (=being) and at the same time us becoming the world.

I envision the endless potential within the textile, weave with textile, create with textile, and co-exist with textile.

6. What is your favorite part of the weaving process and why? What’s your least favorite?

I enjoy and love every weaving process since the creation process makes me feel spiritually elevated. At the same time, the same weaving processes can be a dread and heavy-hearted.

7. Do you sell your work or make a living from weaving? If so, what does that look like and how has that affected your studio practice?

Yes – I make a living from the textile arts I have created.  

I mainly use Instagram as the main platform within social media as well as doing exhibitions through the galleries who express their interests in my art in Japan and overseas. 

Individuals who expressed their interests in my art can be viewed and purchased by appointment. 

I experienced that there is more demand in the overseas rather than domestic (Japanese) market through the responses from social media.  The main issue I am currently facing is shipping my work overseas. Due to the physical size of the work, it can be very costly and logistically difficult to transport the work to the gallery and exhibitions. The methods produced for mounting my work are very uniquely calculated, selected and created. Therefore, simply transporting the textile itself I created will not represent my whole work.  It is also impossible to transport my loom overseas, so I will need to consider the method of transport and exhibitions in the future.

8. Where do you find inspiration?

Many of my inspirations are from the sentences and words.  They come from technical journal articles, philosophy literature, and various (classical and contemporary) novels.  

The Japanese language uses many Chinese characters (called kanji):  Kanji consists of various parts.  There are many Kanji contain “糸” (thread) as a part of a word, such as “絵” (drawing/ picture), “紙“ (paper), “縁“ (connection/ relationship), “総“ (whole).  The words give me so many opportunities to contemplate and examine the history of textile and weaving that exist in the past, present and future as well as relationships, connections, associations and history which involves and evolves with thread. Therefore, a thread is a part of a whole, and a thread is an origin or the catalyst of metamorphosis.

9. If you could no longer weave, what would you do instead?

If and when I am no longer able to weave, I would like to spread the wisdom that textile and weaving has taught me in past, present and future.  Perhaps, that is the time and moment in which textile becomes text.

✻

Name: Maris Van Vlack (she/her)

Studio location: Boston, MA

Website / social links: marisvanvlack.com, @marisvanvlack

Loom type or tool preference: 16 shaft MacComber jack loom, 24 shaft AVL compudobby

Years weaving: 8

1. How did you discover weaving and was what your greatest resource as a beginner?

At the age of 13 I began working on an Ashford rigid heddle loom and ever since then I have been weaving nonstop. This loom had only two shafts so I was very limited in the structures I could use. However, this limitation pushed me to experiment with blending yarns and using hand-manipulated techniques and was an important time in my development as a weaver. As a teenager I remember studying the works of famous painters and breaking down the colorways that they used, then experimenting with how to represent these palettes as a woven surface using different yarn combinations. When I was 16 someone gave me a 4-harness jack loom that they found in a junkyard and I taught myself to set it up by watching a Youtube video. This loom finally gave me the opportunity to experiment with different threading and tie-up structures. Currently I weave on 16-harness jack looms, AVL dobbies and jacquards.

2. How do you define your practice – do you consider yourself an artist / craftsperson / weaver / designer / general creative or a combination of those? Is this definition important to you?

I am primarily an interdisciplinary artist, relying on the structure of weaving as a foundation for my work but viewing each piece like it is a painting. The way that I weave and the way that I draw are very similar; to me a thread is simply a drawn line that moves through three-dimensional space. I mix other techniques into my woven work, and I have developed my own process of combining and collaging together hand-weaving, jacquard, industrial and hand-knitting, embroidery, and painting directly onto woven surfaces. Weaving is an overarching structure that holds my work together, but my practice is not limited to weaving techniques.

3. Describe your first experience with weaving.

I attribute my interest in weaving to having grown up in Massachusetts, where I have many early memories of going to museums and historical sites relating to the textile industry. I don’t recall a precise moment where I first attempted weaving, but I felt that I was always aware of woven fabric surrounding me in everyday life.

4. What is your creative process, from the initial idea to the finished piece? Are there specific weave structures, looms, or fibers that are important to your process?

Most of my recent works are quite large, consisting of several panels of fabric sewn together. The most challenging part of planning these pieces is visualizing the composition and making sure that the panels will line up correctly to form an image after they are woven. My process usually begins with painting a to-scale version of the piece with acrylic on paper, which allows me to step back and see the image as a whole before beginning to weave. When I am at the loom I work with tapestry, using my painting as a reference. I have developed my own method of hand knitting into the fabric while it is being woven to create a transparent knitted layer that is integrated into the woven surface. When weaving I will often leave open spaces, which I will fill with jacquard-woven fabric later on. When I take the fabric off of the loom, I begin piecing it together, starting to look at the different elements as a whole image. If I don’t like how some areas work with the rest of the piece, I will cover them with paint. I like having the freedom to change things after the weaving part is finished.

5. Does your work have a conceptual purpose or greater meaning? If so, do you center your making around these concepts?

My work is inspired by histories that are held within the landscape, referencing geology and architecture relating to spaces from my family’s journey away from pre-World War II Europe to their current lives in the Americas. I explore how human-made structures eventually return to the earth through time and decay, using images of topography and architectural ruins from archived family photographs. My practice allows me to slowly build up a plane of fabric with a sedimentary process where each thread represents a moment in time; weaving is a way to mirror how a record of history gets trapped and preserved within the land. Layering my woven surfaces with drawn, painted, and stitched marks hides what is underneath but also reveals new forms, similarly to how a space evolves and changes over time while still holding elements within it that allow one to see into the past. I see my work as a window through which one can see many iterations of time and memory, depicting spaces that exist between the past and the present.

6. What is your favorite part of the weaving process and why? What’s your least favorite?

The best moment of making any work is taking the woven fabric off of the loom, hanging it on the wall and seeing it as a whole for the first time. The weaving process is very nerve-wracking for me because I can only see a small section of the piece at once before it winds around the beam, and I have to keep a mental image of what the beginning of the fabric looked like as I continue to build onto the piece. Finally getting to see the whole fabric at once is exciting but also intimidating.

My least favorite moment is the early stages of making a work when there are endless directions in which the project could go. It can be overwhelming because I have no idea what the end result is going to look like, but once I have begun the physical making process and have a material object to respond to I become more confident in the work.

7. Do you sell your work or make a living from weaving? If so, what does that look like and how has that affected your studio practice?

In June I graduated from my Textiles BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and now I am currently making work in my home studio. I am planning for some group gallery shows and have plans to attend international artist residencies to explore the world and continue expanding my practice. I also work as a textile designer at a Jacquard rug weaving mill.

8. Where do you find inspiration?

Old maps, architectural floor plans, lava flow patterns, prehistoric fossils, stone buildings, boats, old cartoons, caves, cliffs, clocks, and fantasy architecture illustrations.

9. What other creatives do you admire – weavers, artists, entrepreneurs – and why?

One of my favorite weavers is Magdalena Abakanowicz because of the way that she utilized weaving as a sculptural medium. Earlier this year I got the opportunity to visit the retrospective exhibition of her Abakans at the Tate Modern and it was an unforgettable experience. The pieces have a figural quality that just doesn’t translate through photos. I am also inspired by the work of Anselm Kiefer, because of the scale and tactile quality of his paintings. I would love to be able to see his work in person.

10. If you could no longer weave, what would you do instead?

If I couldn’t weave, I would definitely still be working as an artist, probably painting and making sculptural work. If I was not an artist, I think I would want to study geology, because the way that the earth is in a constant state of change intrigues me.