Thanks to everyone who commented on the previous post - great feedback!
I have a fairly strong bias against anything that hides the selvedge of a wall-hung textile. To me, the selvedge shows that it is a textile constructed exactly that size, not cut from a larger mass-produced piece. It shows the cloth is handwoven, because a mill doesn't weave that narrow.
One comment I hear from lots of visitors to my booth is "That's digitally printed onto plain fabric, right?" When I can flip up a corner of the cloth and show them the reverse side, it's easier to demonstrate that the image is woven in, not printed on.
My answer to the question is always "No printing was involved. The picture IS the cloth, and the cloth IS the picture. The picture was created thread by thread, as the cloth was woven."
However, as Anne says, customers seem to have difficulty envisioning how to use an unmounted wallhanging, but no trouble imagining a photo or painting in their home. Thus the effort to make these weavings look more like artwork, even if I have to sacrifice textileness :-(
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6 comments:
I love your blog and I thought I would weigh in on the idea of framing. As I have been a professional picture framed off an on over the years I have some experiance. If you would like to preserve the textileness ( I know not a real word). I woud mount the wall hangins on stretcher bars this solves several problems at once. First when you turn it over you can still demontratef that the design is woven in, second it is less expensive than framing, third it enables the customer to hang as is or to purchase a frame that suites them to go around it. With a little practice you can do the stretching yourself with a minimum of tools to further keep the cost down.
Jennifer
www.jenniferwiles.com
Have you considered checking out some of the newer fasteners, like the 3M command systems? If you could find another way to mount something on a wall and show potential customers how to do it, then it might overcome the hurdles. I have to say I had never tried any of the 3M products until we moved to a place with concrete walls, but so far they have been terrfic. No holes in walls. Perhaps a stretcher bar at the top that could be attached to a wall. Just an idea.
Kimmen
Aren't people funny? Funny-peculiar that is.
I agree that stretcher framing is a good way to keep the reverse visible so you can demonstrate its textiliousness, but I wonder whether you need to be able to demonstrate this for every piece - perhaps it would be sufficient to have two or three sample pieces handy to show the construction? Actually, as I write, the vision of the confused punter is growing and in my mind's eye I now see a whole museum-style explanation board...
Well, I hit the Submit Comment button before I was finished... What I meant to say was:
Hi, Cally,
That's what a craft show stall is - a (usually) 10x10-foot museum-style explanation board, complete with docent whose job it is to explain the explanation board to confused punters.
Happy holidays!
Don't sacrifice the textileness of your tapestries. Then the public will never learn that there is more than one way to create a picture.
As for the Three Pines I received from you, I have been looking for just the right place to showcase it, and I think I have found it. It's so beautiful that I wanted it hun in a place that shows it off like it should be shown off. Thank you for weaving this!
BTW, I'll be taking this to the weaving classes I teach to show off how far in complexity you can go with weaving.
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