Therapy Avoided

Several weeks ago I whined about being “stuck” and avoiding beginning a long planned for weaving. I just couldn’t’ get my butt in gear to actually weave the piece. After hemming & hawing, I came to the realization, while floating in the swimming pool that the piece was not challenging.

Of course, I had to think another week or two about THAT… By now you KNOW I’m a master at procrastination.

Last week I finally got my butt in gear. On Thursday, I got my largest work surface set up and prepped for work. And I began weaving. I began knowing there would be no technical challenges. There were no “issues” to work out in the weaving process. It would weave up easily.

I found the challenge in the design. I work with newspaper. The printed word or image is my palette. Using the same 1 inch strip of newspaper from 120 copies of the same paper, I began weaving. I paid attention to the repeat design which developed as I wove making adjustments as I wove it into a 60 inch long weaving.

Then I chose the second 1inch strip from 120 copies of the same newspaper. I added this to the side of the first length of weaving. And then I repeated this with the third 1 inch strip from the same 120 newspapers.

I found my challenge in developing an interesting repeat pattern. I noticed that most of the images in the three 1 inch strips (120 copies of each strip) were mostly of meat; steak, hamburger, frijatas, roast beef. These newspapers were for the local grocery store, after all….

Commercial break: Ralph’s Grocery Store is my absolute favorite grocer in Palm Springs. They are very giving to the community. They give me hundreds of copies of old newspaper fliers for my artwork. They save the trimmings from the Romain Lettuce for my African Sulcata Tortoise. They are friendly and nice. Thank you Ralphs!

After completing three interwoven panels, I ended up with a piece approximately 40 inches by 60 inches. It looked unfinished. So I added a boarder of black & white newspaper from the sports section. I liked the tie-in of meat, lots of protein with sports.

Jocks eat a lot of beef, no? Seemed appropriate. You would have to pay attention and READ the boarder to figure that out. But I know it’s there and that’s what counts. I named this weaving “Serape Adkins.”

I completed the weaving of this piece yesterday (Sunday) morning. The only thing left to do is to secure the selvages so it will hold together. I like the finished product and it looks exactly as I thought it would, boarder and all. The only unknown was the design created by the repeating strips of newspaper. It wove quickly. It was not a challenge. I enjoyed the process immensely.

Do I over think and over analyze my work? Perhaps I do and perhaps that’s a good thing! Now, I’m headed back out to the pool to think about my next weaving. And it better be a challenge!

This weaving is for sale. If you are interested in purchasing this piece, you will have to wait until it’s selvages are secured and ready for hanging. If you cannot wait, please take a minute to visit my website at www.JerryLHanson.com Take a look at my artwork. Contact me if you want to buy one of my works or if you have any questions about a specific piece. My contact information is on my website and you can leave a comment on this blog site for me to contact you. You can e-mail me at JeryL@JerryLHanson.com or you can telephone me on my studio phone 760-992-3157. You can call me. I won’t mind.

Thanks for listening,

Jerry L. Hanson