A Tapestry Exhibit

About 10 days ago, I drove to San Luis Obispo to see an exhibit at the Museum of Art. The exhibit was a joint affair, including the work of both the Santa Inez Valley Woodworkers Guild and the tapestry artist Mary Zicafoose. The wood displays were wonderful - lathe-turned bowls as well as gorgeous modern furniture.

The tapestries were what really blew me away. Traditional tapestries are weft-faced textiles, and usually patterned with discontinuous wefts. That is, if there's a design area of red, the red yarn goes back and forth in its own area, and the weft for the adjacent areas work only in their respective areas. Mary's tapestries  are weft-faced, but the intricate patterning (at least the pieces in this exhibit) is almost all done with ikat dye work.

Here is just a one exampls, a low-quality image I snapped with my cell-phone camera. You should hop immediately to her website for much better images. My mind reels with the notion of how precisely the ikat is done to maintain the patterning. In my [meager] experience, warp ikat is difficult enough, but weft ikat is much more challenging. You have to know exactly how long one weft shot will be, including the takeup of the yarn as it is forced to do the "over-and-under" action with the warp.

Mary was the subject of one of Syne Mitchell's WeaveCast interviews; you might enjoy listening to the interview. It's episode #4, by the way. Enjoy!