I see I had started a post in December called "winter working" but that clearly fell by the wayside. We're now in April the following year, the gallery has reopened for the 2025 season and my latest tapestry, which has taken up the majority of my time over winter, is now finished and hanging in the gallery.
Reverberance of nature
Handwoven tapestry: cotton, linen, rayon and wool
size: approx. 120 x 53cm (47 x 21")
"Reverberance of nature" explores the idea of interconnectedness through a series of echoes: wet sand mirroring sky and sand ripples reflecting headland and island forms, cloud formations and bird flight. These harmonious connections and repetition create a sense of ambiguity, energy and rhythm under subtle shifts of light.
I've been mulling over the concept of interconnectedness within nature and gathering research related to it since winter 2023 but the visuals for this particular artwork only fully formed towards last spring. I then delayed starting it until the latter half of the year when the gallery shuts for winter (October-March) as I knew it would require my full attention without interruption.
As suspected, it did indeed require my full attention due to all the complex subtleties in tone and texture. Initial progress was fairly steady, reaching half way by the end of the year but I hit a massive mental block in January. I felt like I spent more time head scratching and undoing weaving than weaving for the best part of a month.
I spent a lot of time in January feeling uncertain whether what I was creating was actually working and communicating what I had envisioned. It felt like a precarious balance of wanting the artwork to be delicate, ambiguous and tonally and texturally subtle but not so subtle that it looked flat and uninteresting. Somewhat nerve-wrackingly it took until moving into the blue tones before I felt I could really see that my idea was coming together.
As a result the upper 1/4 of the composition came together much quicker. "Finishing fever", as my Mum referred to it, kicked in as I wove most of the last quarter in just over a week. Another wonderful example of why it's impossible to say how long it takes to create a one-off painting or tapestry artwork; there is no fixed template for creative thinking and decision-making as it can vary wildly from piece to piece or even within one artwork. It took me the whole of January to progress a meagre couple of inches and everything felt like a slog, compared to towards the end of the artwork when I wove around 1ft in about a week as I was in a good decision-making flow. (It also depends on other variable factors, but I'm resisting going off on a complete tangent.)
I'm aware many people will be asking if this piece is for sale and I'm afraid the answer is no for the time being as I'm still trying to build up a body of larger artworks (you can read my reasons behind this in a blog post here.) Realistically I only make one bigger tapestry artwork a year so it'll take at least 2 more years before I can consider parting with any of them. At present they're worth more for me to keep for display at the gallery than to sell. However I will continue to produce smaller tapestries and other artworks for sale throughout the year. I have two preparatory studies for this artwork and they will be listed for sale soon at the gallery and on the gallery's website.
Once all my post-artwork admin is complete it'll be back to the drawing board for new artwork. Time to dig out the sketchbooks and paints and see where my creativity takes me.