P2P2: my images are here!

In case you're wondering what P2P2 is, it's Pics to Picks, the second. Details can be found on Meg's blog, here. You can also follow along with the fun there. The general idea is that weavers swap images of inspiration and then use the images they have received to develop a woven piece.

I am very much a time-poor weaver, and as a consequence the projects I make tend to start either as a way to use up my stash or with a specific finished project in mind. That has limited the creativity I've been able to put into my weaving lately. Because of this, P2P2 is going to be a real challenge for me. It's going to force me to think about my weaving in terms of art rather than craft, or at least in terms of practical finished article.

I've made a slow start so far, but in a fit of perfect timing a parcel of joy arrived in my letterbox on Friday. It had come from Alienore, in the US. Alienore has chosen to send me a number of clippings, found objects and a photo of a warp on her loom.

I really like this collection, because these are all things that mean something to Alienore. The photo on the right especially, of a silk warp on Alienore's loom, seems to channel her intention. I found myself unable to consider the images singly, because they seem to want to be a whole.



These are the clippings. Top left is what seems to be a close-up of some kind of egg. Bottom left is ladybirds on luscious wine grapes. Top centre is a delicious-looking collection of differently-coloured and shaped heirloom tomatoes. Bottom centre is an image of a heron in front of some russet-coloured reeds. Interestingly, my eyes sank into the colour of the reeds in the background long before they registered the bird in the foreground. The right image is of a woman, horse and dog sharing a cuddle. Beside this, Alinore has written "I love connections".

Many things strike me about this collection of images. They're strong on colour, shape and connections. Warm colours, round, soothing shapes, and an overall pallete of yellow, orange, reds, mauves and purple with an emphasis on reds and purples. This colour pallette is one that I surround myself with in life, as the soft furnishings in my living room are in these colours and I've recently bought the Tubular spectrum cottons in that pallette, with which to make myself tea towels.

The special treat is below the image of the silk warp:


Hummingbird feathers she has found on her patio. I'm very much a bird person and love hummingbirds (who couldn't? They defy gravity.) so the feathers are a special treat for me. Combined with the heron and the ladybirds, flight is emerging as a theme for me from this set of images. The final thing that srtuck me about these images is the rough, warm texture of the silk in the photo of Alienore's warp. I weave with silk a lot, so the photo of a silk warp has made me decide that silk is probably the right material to use for this project, wherever that project takes me.

So, to sum up, here are my initial impressions:

Emotive: roundness, warmth, growth, abundance, comfort, connections.

Colours: warm colours, especially in the pink-red-purple spectrum

Material: silk, but perhaps with some texture

Weave: Something involving flight, movement, possibly feathers

Overall: strong focus on the connection between colour and weave interplay. Possibly a networked draft on a hand-painted warp, but that hasn't become clear in my head yet.

This has been a great set of images to play with. Thanks, Alienore.

And now I should probably make a start on getting the next warp on my loom!