American Tapestry Alliance

Hello everyone,
by now you will probably have received your ATA newletter for Summer 2006.
This is the space devoted to any thoughts, ideas, comments about my article 'Seeds of Change' in this issue. A way of making the Newletter more interactive and to generate discussion on the forums.
The update on the article is that my composted tapestries are back under ground to be dug up and documented at the end of June, then re-planted again, if anything remains.
regards
Dorothy

Hi Dorothy,

This is just a quick post to link to the online version here, starting half-way down on page 2:

Doors, Pathways, Journeys, Seeds

I have some thoughts but not quite finding them coherent or ready to set down just yet... hopefully later today or maybe Monday!

Christine

thanks for including the link Christine. I look forward to your comments.

This topic ties in with the comment you made about thinking about the other aspects of textiles, such as those you mention at Topic By hand - artistic issues forum

[url]
http://www.americantapestryalliance.org ... .php?t=171
[/url]



The By hand conversation also led me to think about fingers, digits, and how the digital connection through discussion, emails, possible development of other ideas through digital images etc has threaded its way through this project.

Because of the other processes involved -composting - the hand is also not so important, and anxiety levels are somewhat higher. Six inches of flood water over the tapestries induced a feeling of panic, curiousity levels and a feeling of 'cannot wait to dig them up' adds a different feeling other that of meditative.
Dorothy

Hi all,

My newsletter finally arrived! I really enjoyed the opening paragraphs of your article, Dorothy and Linda, where I found this question: "What is the appropriate disposal method for a rejected tapestry?" (Tapestry Topics p.7)

This is one I've never asked nor tried to answer, so I'll have to set that line of thinking aside for the moment.

Another quote: "The idea of intentionally decomposing work, letting go of the preciousness of the object, and their fascination with the entire process, drew them in and kept them wondering. Each wove more tapestries to bury and began a separate series of explorations." (TT p.7)

These two sentences seem very different from each other, to me, when I think about the act of putting a tapestry in the ground. The idea of "decomposing work" seems to have originated with composting organic material. My understanding of that process is that the material must be turned regularly, otherwise it layers and is not efficient for production of soil, and part of the intent is to allow any seeds to sprout and die. From what I read in this article, this is not what took place. Instead, the rejected tapestries (even the first one that initiated the subsequent projects) were buried in the ground in a way closer to funereal practices.

Burial implies two things to me: 1) a way to put away in a safe place something which is valued; and 2) a way to hide something that you don't want anyone to know about. In both cases, and I wish to include the burial of a deceased person, the thing being buried is valued (is precious). There seems to me, at least, to be a bit of contradiction between the act of burying and claiming that you are "letting go of the preciousness" of the tapestries, unless I figure out that the practice is not really a burial.

An exception would have to do with burying evidence of a crime or something taboo, where burial hides something shameful. In which case, why would you dig it back up? Is the rejected tapestry something that is evidence to be presented (or re-presented) for me to see? And why?

(I don't have any texts to reference so I may be missing a great deal of cultural context outside of my own experience.)

The planting metaphor, as opposed to burying, is intriguing. If the woven textile is planted, then it is placed in loosely turned soil, barely far enough under the soil for the "seed" to receive nutrients and moisture but still get lots of heat from the sun. What is the proper depth to plant this seed? Many questions like this come to my mind thinking about this process.

Does it affect you to know that the seed is barren - or infertile - before you plant it?

The "Seed 1" tapestry has a slit down the middle that appears sewn up. For some reason the seed part reminds me of female genitalia (sorry, don't know how else to say it). Was this intentional?

Why is the seed anchored by warps at the top? In such a small piece each detail seems to convey meaning, so that the loose strands at the bottom of the seed suggest early roots.

With Dorothy's pieces, the contrast between metaphor and object actually causes me quite a bit of puzzlement (which is good). I ask myself, what happens between reality and imagination in these pieces? Is the act of planting a tapestry that you know will not sprout an act of imagination? Or is it symbolic? How does it gain meaning? Is it that the retrieved tapestry gets transformed into something "reminiscent of ancient textiles that have been found in bogs, rather than the exquisite fragments found in the arid areas of Peru" - in other words, its appearance - is this the only way that the sterile bits of cloth gain meaning?

*looking puzzled*

Christine

Dorothy and Linda I enjoyed your article, very provacative. Christine there are many different kinds of composting - the fast and speedy one whih you were describing is where you turn the compost and keep it hot; one of the other ones which is much slower is to layer compost material and dirt and over time the compost turns into black dirt. As to burial I think in terms of the act being permanent, likewise in our conteporary culture the body/item is put into a box with some pretext of protection. The idea of letting things just happen is so appealing to me. What is interesting is the control of the weaving, then the free fall of the composting, and then bringing back control again in the planning of the presentation. I am reading a book on idea based art and am wondering how much of this was planned beforehand and how much was let's see what happens next.

Joyce

Hello Christine

[quote="Christine Laffer"]
These two sentences seem very different from each other, to me, when I think about the act of putting a tapestry in the ground.[ /quote]

I will start off with composting which was the process by which the whole joint project was started. This was very much a project that was initiated by the process, the individual concepts were expressed/ developed after the initial decision to bury/plant the exchanged failed tapestries to see what would happen.

This is from my point of view, Linda will have other things to say.

Decompostition is a recycling process, the turning of organic waste into a useable resource. This can happen naturally or it can be hastened by various gardening practices. The process can involve turning, aerating the mix, creating a high temperature and fast decompostion rate, but organic material can just sit there and decompose slowly/anaerobically whether in nature as a natural process, or in a faster process directed by man. We jointly decided that we would adopt the natural process, and put the tapestries in the ground in the wilder, uncultivated parts of our respective gardens. We agreed that we were initially more interested in seeing what happened naturally rather than would could happen in a cultivated and controlled environment.

Decompostion also reveals the bones of a body: the skeleton of a leaf: the structure, of an object. the stucture of tapestry is something I have become more interested in.

To clarify a point I am an enthusiastic gardener and everything that had once lived goes into the compost or gets buried in the ground near a plant to feed that plant, once its more usual function in life is finished. We often find road kill that has crawled away to die in peace and quiet at the far end of our extensive garden (3/4 acre) and several trees are fertilised by the buried remains -much nicer than taking the usually pungent carcases to the Council tip.

The whole idea very literally hinged on composting and fertilisation of the literal ground/soil, and the implied fertilisation (metaphorical) of our separate practices as the project grew and we realised the potential. We have always referred to it as the composting project as far as our joint discussions went no matter how our individual concepts evolved over the time, divergent, but connected throught the original process.

When we came to regard the whole project as one that could possibly provide on ongoing way of using the project to develop our tapestry making/concept development processes the word compost seemed increasingly appropriate even though our use of words such as 'planting/burial' implied other thoughts and ideas lurking under the surface.

[quote="Christine Laffer"]Each wove more tapestries to bury and began a separate series of explorations." (TT p.7)

Linda and I should probably looked very closely at the wording here, at the editorial stage. It is a quote from Linda who attached the word bury and burial to her works very early on. Perhaps a more nuetral word like 'put' which does not have so many connotations and implications should have been used to apply to both of us. Both of us by putting the tapestries into the ground were seeing it initially as two different processes. Linda 'burying' seeds, and myself 'planting' seeds.

To go back to the garden, which for me has been an important underlying part of this project. Gardening here is a semi arid climate with very poor dirt (I refuse to call it soil) and even worse quality water is a learning experience, some seeds sprout, then die; others do not germinate; some plants go on to florish and seem almost weedy in habit, quite vigorous; others start off well then get devasted by the heat in summer or the frost in winter. What remains is the structure that underpins the garden. I now look at the seed tapestries as a metaphor, that have repeated this process of sprouting or not, growing, florishing. dieing, surviving, in ideas and concepts. There is a surprising satisfaction in two activities that I am passionate about linking together both metaphorically and literally.

I will get back to the rest of your your comments/questions later on at the weekend.


regards
Dorothy

What you wrote is very true. Composting takes the human-made artifact and consigns it to the elements and exposes it to the effects of chance. It's all very intriguing.

It also raises so many interesting questions. Is any chance event necessarily a good thing? If the yarn arrives from the factory with a few stray knots in it -- is this an aspect of chance that you would incorporate into your tapestry or would you fix it so that the knots were not visible?

Does it take a certain state of mind to allow yourself not to take control and let the chance elements happen? Or do you have to put the tapestry way beyond your normal art activity in order to relinquish control?

What if Dorothy took Linda's rejected tapestry and simply tossed it out into her yard. Maybe she would then take photographs of its journey as winds or passing animals caused it to travel. Does the tapestry take on an independent life of its own once you let it leave the studio? Is this simply an anthropomorphizing activity or is there something else captured when you let another part of the world act upon the made thing?

Lots and lots of questions.

thanks Joyce,
there was no planning at all. We just wanted to see what would happen once we had decided we would bury/plant the tapestries in the ground, and the whole project snowballed from that point, we never dreamed that this would be discussed worldwide although we did intend to have them discussed at the online ATA critique group once we realised we wanted to do more than just bury a swapped failed tapestry. Exhibitiing the tapestries (separately) was an opportunity with the possiblility that they would not be acceptable to the curator/gallery. Throughout the whole project there has been an element of risk that we would end up with nothing to show for it so we could not plan ahead.
Dorothy

Very well written, Dorothy, and I hope you don't mind if I quote the parts that seem to tell the tale from my viewpoint. Here are two parts that I want to put together because of the way that they lead to an open field for play.



Recycling, useable resource, and naturally alert me as a reader to a possible artist's position that has to do with your view of the world as a place where things fit into a cycle that supports life and where little can afford to be wasted. This is supported by the following paragraph:



So you receive a tapestry and you are then told by the artist that it is a reject and should be discarded. This tapestry no longer holds any value -- and yet in your eyes, it still has lots of value. The value has changed though, from art object it has become material/organic object which can possibly add nutrients (value) to the sparse dirt.

Here, art practice steps out of the art arena and reasserts itself in daily life. What you held in your hands were organic materials which could be useful in the world in which you live. In my mind this all makes perfect sense.

But then why dig it up, why retrieve it? Had it completed it's contribution to the soil? Or was it curiousity that drove you to see what had become of it?



Did decomposition reveal the structure of the tapestry? Or maybe it actually revealed parts of the structure. Maybe it revealed ways that a tapestry can exist without being "whole" or "complete" or conforming to an accepted standard. Maybe that's why "Stitch" took on the form that it did (this is to show you the way that my mind travels the path and see whether it is close to yours).

The cycle from art object to organic material that partially decomposes then returns to the studio ... to act as a trigger for art-making seems complete. Although the decomposed tapestry itself remains in limbo.



Dorothy, my interest in the play between literal and metaphorical, between real and imagined as conveyed in word choice, need not trigger the same kinds of analogies in other readers. I very much enjoy a close reading of a good solid text. But I do agree - "putting" the tapestry in the ground certainly is a lot less loaded than "burying" it.

Christine

We both thought about how we would approach the planting/burial, for me I had thought about planting at the right time of the moon (to bring a sense of ritual to it-probably this will evoke another question) but that is a European? practice it does not belong in an arid Australian environment. I decided that I would plant my tapestries after the first decent rain which is when seeds, plants start growing here both in the garden and in the wild. In dry periods especially in the heat of summer everything goes dormant. I waited for 6 months for it to rain before the finished tapestries were planted.

Depth- once again I decided this on conditions in the garden. Surface planting as in seeds might eventuate in the tapestries being washed away if it rained a lot and a flood came through. So they were planted at a depth of a spade, about the depth of the roots of smaller grasses and forbes.

During the next rains which were heavier I put stones on top of the site. iI was worried that the tapestries might get swept away in a flood. This made the site look a bit like a burial ground, but it is something I do in the cactus garden bed to anchor the tall cactus firmly and act as a mulch, and sun protector for smaller more sun sensitive cactus. Stones in the natural environment help pockets of soil and seed to build up and protect young seedlings. Larger rocks form protective barriers.

All these aspects of planting was to achieve optimum conditions to start of the decomposing process. - the growing of the seed tapestry into something else. Much of the time it is so dry here that rain does not even penetrate the surface, but a small amount does stimulate the bacteria in the soil to become active, even if the soil at root depth is not damp. The way conditions are at the moment the decompostion process will not have progressed very far by the end of June when I had planned to dig them up.



I never considered that all the 'seeds' would be barren, I was sure that one would produce something, even if it was only a rather unusual photograph of a disintegrated tapestry. But if I had been left with nothing I had not spent much time in the weaving, and our discussions were interesting enough to provoke some different ideas and more importantly opened our minds up to other possibilities with tapestry, introducing an element of play and risk.

I think that there was a certain act of faith - the same as when you start on a large tapestry with huge investment in time. You know it worked when doing the design/cartoon so it will work when it finally comes off the loom. We did not know what we would end up with, but were hopeful that there would be something - either tangible or intangible.

Dorothy

Curiosity and a desire to record what was happening to the tapestries was the main reason to dig them up. To begin with I was still wanting to end up with something physical at the end of the project . But then decided it was not neccessary to keep partially disintegrated tapestries, they were interesting, but they would continue to fall to bits. Scanned photos were a way of using the tapestries in a different way, no longer actual but virtual, perhaps generating other images, forms, structures in future work. Over the next few months depending on weather conditions I will dig them up periodically and record their condition. Eventually there will come a day when the threads will no longer hang together the form will be lost but the metamorphosis into soil will almost be complete.

Now there's a thought. Elements making up a form. The form being lost: the individual elements remaining. It sounds like a computer nightmare digital elements existing but the form no longer exists making those elements inaccessible. I have written this down so as not to lose the thought. I am not sure how this relates to tapestry making or why it seems to be important, but it could be.



Yes, we are definitely on the same mind path. I realised that a tapestry did not have to be complete while I was about halfway through 'stiitch'. I had a postcard card of a Bridget Riley study by my loom for a while after the first digging up of the tapestries. It took me awhile to discover why I liked that particular card and why I wanted it pinned by my loom. I remember writing to Linda about it. Riley'swork is very much of the pop art era, but the study had irregularities in the washes of background paint at the bottom of the paper, indicating that she did not feel it was neccessary to finish the study. Along the bottom where notes and a series of numbers. Records?

I am not sure if the study went on to be used for a final work, but the unfinished quality, or perhaps the idea of a work in progress was much more interesting than many of her artworks.

Thinking about 'works in progress' could be that here the interest is in the potential, when something is finished - that is that. Leaving something unfinished could lead on to other directions. Finishing closes a door, something unfinished holds the door open to other possibilities.



I am not so sure the decomposed tapestry does remain in limbo. It will become part of the soil, in turn some of those particular elements may be taken up by the plants, trees, producing seeds which in turn could be eaten by wildlife, a passing cow (just within the realms of possibility in an outback town) the circle never ends, the beef might just end up on my plate, or in an american hamburger.

Ideas discussed here may trigger a particular thought in one of the readers who goes on to do who knows what? inspired by these particular conversations. Not a complete circle ending in my studio, just ongoing perhaps in other studios.

There is a strong element of interconnectiveness here.
I must go. I have some weaving to do.
Dorothy

The short answer:) for what happens between reality and imagination in these pieces is initially lots of fuzzy thinking which I am still in the process of sorting out. One of the problems with chance, and an uncontrollable process is that you do not know what you will end up with. Contrary to more normal practice the concepts followed after the actual tapestry was woven, planted and dug up. But there are other that I have looked at in the past that have crept in almost unconsciously.

Initially I thought that the tapestries would have more organic marks on them - with the theme of the natural world and its effects/marks on the tapestries to an extent this has happened, but not in the form of markings. Linda had dug one of her tapestries up and discovered it had an orange mark on it (probably mould or fungus) and while my tapestries were under the earth I had been doing some research on compost dyeing that textile artists use which is a much more controlled process to a certain extent. But the uncontrolled process is much more exciting - I do not think my thought processes would have followed the same pattern using compost dyeing techniques the process is quicker, more directed by the artist to achieve certain types of marks, patterns and colours.



Both. Some years ago I did some research on the Gaia Hypothosis (developed by James Lovelock and Lynne Margulis) which is a hypothosis that says that the Earth is a self -healing entity. Balance will eventually return (though perhaps not in the way that is expected). The fact that interested me is that in this research was that the Earth's atmosphere was originally mostly carbon dioxide supporting very different life forms - mostly microscopic, certain bacteria were very successful and multiplied to such an extent that they 'polluted' their environment with their oxygen waste - transforming the Earth's environment into what we have today supporting the majority of life forms that need oxygen to survive. Those original bacteria still exist mostly hidden in guts of animal life and essential to survival. They did not know what they were doing and to some extent neither do we when we interfer with natural processes or even just continue to do what we have to do to survive.

This theory has also been adopted by historians and social scientists (History from the Ecological Perspective: the Gaia theory and the problem of Co operatives in the turn of the century Germany - Brett Fairburn. ) which offers more implications on the nature of the collaborative nature of the project. .

One thought in the back of my mind, which develped from this resaerch is 'When we impose our will on something we hope we know what we are doing. When we lose control we create something else.' (TTpg 10) I had to believe that I was creating 'something else'.
Could this be seen as symbolic? this uncontrolled creating. I like to think so with the archetypal undertones that the very name Gaia suggests.



Coming back to full circle - Could this 'sterile bits of cloth' be evidence as referred to in your second posting. Evidence that I did not know what I was creating, but kept on doing it anyway.

No wonder you are looking puzzled - I feel puzzled. So many layer of thinking.

Hi Dorothy, Christine and all.

Sorry to be so late in joining this discussion. Rather than selecting quotes and responding to each entry, I thought I'd just begin by talking a bit about the project and the concepts, from my perspective.

One of the aspects of artmaking I felt was lacking from my practice was experimentation. There's a magic that happens for Dorothy and I as we fling emails back and forth across the globe, exploring ideas, possibilities, threads and links. Most of those exist only on a virtual level but the process helps open up the creative process - and it's fun. That was an aspect to this project that was really important to me. That sense of the five year old playing make-believe...."let's say this is so". Permission to do something we really thought would stay just between the two of us.

Once initiated, the process and the concepts have evolved, grown, shifted and developed unexpected layers. No matter what the concept - I do not feel I am doing any other activity than "burying" when I dig a hole and place the tapestry on the earth. It feels clandestine and delightful (I'm not sure where the delight comes from, but it's there). There's a sense of cycles, both birth and death, regeneration, shape shifting.

There were aspects to the process I did not anticipate. I've never been a technical weaver and have always been focused on the imagery. Now, I'm so engaged with the interplay of the fibres, the structure of the weaving. If I hadn't begun this, I might not have been as blown away by Sue Lawty's work, when I stumbled across her exhibition at the V&A. Ancient scraps of fabric, with wear and stains and decay are now fascinating.

Why dig them up again? Because we could not resist doing so. It's the interplay between preciousness and letting go, between control and chance....and, it just fascinated me. I have the hardest time leaving the work in the ground. I just want to see if it's changed since the last time I saw it. I find I have to force myself to take the next step...once removed from the earth and washed, they are wild and three dimensional and oh so delicate. In order to prevent disintegration, they must be stitched to a conservation backing - and that changes them irrevocably. I enjoy the back and forth interplay after years of concept, design, weave, finish, hang....and the "not knowing" if there will be anything of interest at the end.

There's more I should write but this is getting too long already.

Linda

I had not fully realized that these seeds went back into the ground again. Your process begins to take on a method like science that includes documentation of ephemeral states. How will you note the last phases? Will they at some point be labled as "lost" or "totally disintegrated"?



Amorphous. Like fog? When the form is lost is the "tapestry" also lost and at what point is it no longer a tapestry? It seems the structure gets revealed and then that it goes on to disappear.



Agreed, although I don't know when something unfinished keeps on retaining interest and when it doesn't. Your example of Bridget Riley's sketch makes me think how unfinished work with notations suggests more insight into an artist's mind than a finished work. But there's a difference between any random unfinished work and one by Bridget Riley.



Your description of the Gaia Hypothesis exerts a lot of appeal. Myself, I'm not sure about "healing" as the main metaphor when the whole system is more of a spiral that has as much potential to end up as an inert lump of rock floating in the universe as anything else. It is intriguing to think of the earth as having many possible futures in which we may or may not matter I do see the parallels between this Hypothesis and your seeds of change.



Especially in the ways that life and art affect each other. The tapestry no longer exists at some point, so it cannot affect you directly. Yet you have the traces of a tapestry like Seed I in your scans, photos, notes and memories so that you can spawn more seeds.

It reminds me of Sharon Marcus's Lake Mungo project in that much of her work during her time there was lost on the return trip. She had to recover much just from the traces in her notes and some photos. In that retrieval and search she found a lot of creative thoughts germinate.

Food for thought.

Christine

I think that the words tranformed, or metemorphosed will be used. Althought the word 'lost' can lead to some interesting ideas. I am thinking of current scientific theory 'information is never lost'

The form of the tapestry is lost, the elements (physical) remain in the form of various particles that can be taken up by plantlife. But there is another elemental layer, that also continues to exist that, not only of scans, notes etc. but these discussions on the forum. The actual tapestries have only been seen by a few people and then mostly only virtually. But who knows where this particular conversation will end up. Saved on a computer somewhere, accessed by who knows? These tapestries are beginning to take on a very different reality. It raises the question of how computers and virtual reality are affecting art, thinking, and tapestry.

If the tapestries go on to live some kind of virtual existence, information stored in a computer or on a disc could another function of tapestry be an information carrier rather than a narrative as has been its traditional fuction?

Could tapestry be regarded as a structure for organising information?

Could the 'loss' of the oirginal tapestry be an opportunity to search and retrieve information that in the process becomes re -organised in a different form, resulting in something different. Do traces rather than a whole complete thing open the door to creativity? The gaps between the traces giving the space for other ideas to develop, other combintations.



An interesting point to look at, I am exploring that fine line between 'tapestry' and 'not tapestry' at the moment for an exhibition at Warnambool. Just where is that fine line? who defines it? The artist? the tapestry curator? exhibition criteria? critics? the people reading and participating in these forums.?

Dorothy