03 f r e e _ woven paint collection

I wanted to fall in love with white all over again. There's a purity about the color that's kept me away; no room for mistakes or experimentation. Weaving beautiful paintings that are imagined on a white canvas, the very place of experimentation for the artist, made me dive into thinking about the structure of a weaving versus a painting.

A canvas with an opaque underlay, allowing the pigment to become a second layer becomes something as soon as a drop of paint hits it. I imagine it's freeing to push around the color and add to it - to only see it become different in a second layer. There's a carefree feeling that goes into watching two colors become one. 

In weaving, a loom provides the structure, a perhaps blank and absent canvas at the start. It can be as simple as a single movement - up and down or back and forth. Sometimes even as far as layering, although two strings rarely become one. The manipulation, for me, happens in the free form of shapes built next to each other. I often weave without a direction and in a sense, it's freeing to me. I live my days with structure and designing the built environment, that it's a wonderful break to walk away from plans or direction and walk into my imagination.

I challenged myself in this collection to find direction and paint - but on a loom. I'm finding my comforts lie in the brush strokes that happen in the middle of a painting. Knowing that I've made the first bold move to lay something down, I can now experiment and play with color, technique and form. But in this process, I find myself feeling constricted to my weft, I can't freely move the three rows back that may need blending. Almost through my weaving, I understand that I have the benefit of not only manipulating my canvas, but also manipulating the pigment and texture. It's just a matter of a different perspective.

And now a blank canvas and white weft has never looked so inspiring. 

The brilliant Kelsie Grazier painted this simple but strong piece, 'Free Spirit' and I couldn't help but feel completely inspired by it. In her words, "The Awakening Series is derived from the need to rewrite a new story. Through creating with no boundaries, the artist was allowed to begin to heal. Mylar provides the lightness to evoke the transcendence of time all while situated in a recollection."  -- in awe. 

I think we should all remind ourselves that the only boundaries we have are the ones we set for ourselves.