onsdag 29. september 2010

I used to be a weaver

During my art teacher education, I chose to specialize two years in weaving. For some time, I aimed to make a living out of weaving, but soon had to give up. When my son was six and I found myself a single parent again, I settled for teaching. I still rented a study and tried to do as much weaving as I could on my spare time.


I loved working with scarfs in soft, delicate wool and shiny silk.
We were taught how to develop and construct the bindings ourselves. The technical complexity and the  ancient history of this craft where the things that attracted me to it. Weaving has such deep roots in our cultural history and womens history and our vocabulary is still full of weaving related words and sayings. 
-Like "the Internet weave". In Norwegian, like: "Å ha bukta og begge endene" og "neste innslag".

I worked a lot with constructing fabrics as soft as possible. The three scarfs shown are bindings I have constructed. The one with black and white stripes became my signature weave. Allowing the scarf to have a beautiful fall, softness and beeing a sturdy binding at the same time. One of the last things I constructed was a binding where I joined two separate scarfs so it could have different colours and stripes on both sides. It ended up too thick. More like a coat fabric, so I gave up the project.
Weaving is very time consuming and I guess I don't have the patience I need in the long run. I also felt limited by mainly beeing able to express myself through stripes and squares. I was happy to move over to the more spontaneous craft that screenprinting represent. But I'm still proud to be a carrier of a heritage craft.
This scarf is inspired by stained glass and it's a school project.

3 kommentarer:

  1. Nydelig sjerf med fargede ruter mot det sorte. Har vevd litt selv på hobbybasis, mest åkle og filleryer. Skjønner godt det du sier om tålmodighet, det er ingen rask vei til resultat. Tror veven får hvile foreløpig for min del. Det er så mye annet spennede å lage :)

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  2. Jeg måtte bare gi opp veven som jeg drømte om å gjøre noe med på 70-tallet... Det var jo mange grunner til det, så etter hvert valgte jeg strikkemaskin. Men, jeg har aldri glømt at dette var fint å holde på med og synd at det ikke kan brukes i grunnskolen (utstyr mangler+at da jeg sa at det bare var å lage ny renning, fikk jeg kjeft!Ingen trodde jo at jeg kunne DET!). Vi har noen vever på formingssalen, men de støver ned. Jeg har brukt båndvevene med elevene mine av og til og det har de likt. Jeg solgte veven min for 15 år siden... da blei den kun brukt som turnstang i stua! Bredde: 175 cm.
    Hilsen Synnøve

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  3. Unni- I really enjoyed reading this post about your personal art history and your cultural connection to weaving. Amazing examples of your work! You could return to this work in the future, you never know!! Thanks for sharing! xo kz

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