Final Weaving – Amber Griffith
For my weaving project, my inspiration was to find a way to showcase what this time of year means to me and how much progress has been made in the last year. In my life, I have numerous anniversaries of bad events in the first half of October. I chose to honor my grandpa’s passing because I feel it is the anniversary that still sticks with me the most now.
Once I decided on my focus, I intended to find a way of showcasing that side of my family without only focusing on the grief of the situation. I wanted to create something that was vibrant and bright, but also meaningful and symbolic. In his lifetime, my grandpa collected eagle statues and figures, and so the eagle became our family’s symbol for him. When he passed, I personally started to see him as the eagle and his legacy as feathers left behind. I decided to try to work in those symbols in with a sunset in order to show progression of time, as well as to show a symbol of an end that was not innately a symbol of death or grief.
In terms of the process, I realized doing the sample weaving that if I were to have a specific design in mind that it would be incredibly difficult to rely on the seemingly random material set in the classroom, so I ordered an array of colorful small balls of yarn for use in my project. In addition, I also made use of my handspun yarn from the first mini assignments because the consistency made for fluffier raya knot stars. Throughout the piece, I used horizontal rows, vertical rows, soumak, raya knots, loops, and various techniques of having multiple lines of yarn going in a single row. I first sketched out an idea for the design, and then looked more technically into how to go about making a curved shape and how to arrange the knots to look bird-like before planning out how the background colors would work into it. After getting past the sun portion, the choices became more spontaneous as I worked through line by line if I should add stars, clouds, or switching into a new color. The goal was for a uniformly random distribution of the elements with more stars being added toward the top of the piece, as well as to transition smoothly into each new color as the piece progresses. The top of the piece is curved and purposefully left with the final string visible to add to the symbolism of how an unexpected death can leave you feeling like there should be more. I finished the piece by doing a series of knots on the top to give it three anchor points for hanging purposes and by making 4 large knots at the bottom with varying number and style of feathers to represent different family members left behind.
I learned that it is a lot harder to do organic shapes than to do geometric shapes while doing the final weaving. I had attempted to plan out the circle by using a sort of pixelated circle reference, but planning out how the pixel design translated into the strings was not a straightforward exercise. In the future, I would want a sort of reference shape I could physically hold up to the piece as a guide throughout. I also learned to appreciate randomness and asymmetry in a way that I did not incorporate into my sample piece. I think it contributes well to the piece as a whole to make the view have to observe the entirety of the piece instead of just being able to focus on one small portion in order to understand the whole of it. From the critiques, I came to appreciate the actual brightness of the colors in how they work together and the emotions that those can invoke. While I definitely wanted the colors for the sake of the sunset theme, hearing others talk about their readings of my piece let me understand exactly how the colors were interpreted.
In the future, I would definitely want to experiment more with making more defined non-geometric shapes. I would also be more purposeful in color selection as opposed to just trying to do what I can with what was in the multipack of yarn I got online.
Final Weaving:
Sample Weaving:
