Weaving Murmurations, a Tapestry Collaboration
A detail of my Murmuration
This project was born out of the Waterline collaboration, which, if you’re not familiar with, you can read about here. The initial idea was the creation of Kati Paakki. Kati was inspired by the movement in the starling’s dance we know of as a Murmuration. She proposed it to the group just before our first exhibit of Waterline in the UK. During the workshop that week, we had an initial meeting to discuss the possibilities and anyone interested was encouraged to join.
Actually, there may have been other meetings before then; this was my first involvement. It all sounded very exciting, but I had to excuse myself from the table and decline. Ideas were flying all around that evening and I knew I wasn’t ready for another project of that magnitude.
So… fast forward about 6 months or so- Kati contacted a few of us that had earlier declined to let us know there was still space for us to be involved- and that a lot of the design decisions had been worked through. I think a few of the original participants may have dropped off the project, and they were hoping to fill some of those spaces. (But I have never actually confirmed this!)
Long story short- I, and two others, agreed to join the project at that point. The overall shape had been determined- and key core colors identified. So I figured … why not. Gosh, that must have been well over a year ago!
My overall shape to size showing a grid of 5 centimeters
I remember I did a lot of sampling in the early days of joining. A lot!
The images below show both color sampling and various edge treatments. The top row is what I went with, although later I wished I’d stuck to my original plan of the shaped hem (bottom row, left). Other photos show only a row of double half-hitches as an edge and wrapping.
Then I waited until more people were beginning, thinking I didn’t want to be one of the first when I hadn’t been initially involved. However, Yonat Michaelov actually completed hers way before anyone else - and she was my neighbor to the left, so I didn’t really have an excuse not to jump right in.
Except for the matter of which loom to weave it on. My piece was not huge, but not small either. It was to be approximately 60cm (just under 23.25”) wide and 90 cm (35.5”) tall; I first thought I would need to do it on my Tissart (which I had yet to have woven on) or my Mirrix Zeus (that already had a warp on it of 32” wide). Later, I decided to weave off the Zeus warp and then warp it for Murmurations since there didn’t seem to be any urgency and no one else in the group had begun.
Well, let me just make another very long story shorter and say that in the end I warped the Tissart in September of last year and planned to begin just after returning from my Peru trip in November.
More months pass by… (this time because I was pretty involved with completing two other tapestries: Immersion and Rising).
The photo library on my phone shows me beginning the framework for the bottom shaping on February 2nd and putting in the first of the (sadly, many) beginning 10 inches in around the 13th. Which I took out later that month before yet another trip when I realized my color blends were just too pale to start with. I did a final color sample while away and came home energized - ready to begin (again).
Maybe you know what happened next. I broke my wrist on March 13th. The wrist connected to my dominant hand. ☹️
Finally, on May 8th, I began anew by winding my color bundles in the progression of my sample (first photo below). I have pages of notes from this time period. You can see my progress in images and with a close eye you might notice how many times I started over. I was beginning to worry about running short of some of those core colors with so much unweaving, but remembered one of the tricks I’d learned from knitting days to un-crimp the fibers - and forged ahead.
Finally, by the 19th I was at peace with how things were progressing. But at the same time, I was getting nervous about finishing on time. We had set a generous deadline of September 15 but the days were flying by. I knew there would still be a lot to do even after completing the weaving. I gave myself a hard date for completion: to finish by the 30th.
I’m happy to say I cut Murmurations off the loom on June 25th, 5 days ahead of schedule! And, in the end, it practically wove itself. (Various puns come to mind- my favorite being the threads just seemed to take flight!)
Getting it ready to hang has been another story altogether. Each of our pieces are uniquely shaped at top and bottom edges. For these to hang straight and not curl after being shipped to and from various locations has taken a lot of experimentation and planning by us all.
As I write this on August 11th, I have been doing a happy dance in my head all weekend because I finally mailed the tapestry off yesterday to Anna in the UK where a group of about 4 participants will prepare each piece for hanging. They will then all be photographed for the catalog to accompany the exhibits.
To stay in touch with where and when “Murmurations” will be exhibited and get other updates on the project as it continues to progress, check out and join the Substack we’ve created and/or follow us on Instagram!
And stay tuned for Part Two of this post: Preparing Murmurations for Exhibiting.