Innovations in Weaving
Image: Edge of the Woods, detail. Wall hanging by Sandra Bogdonoff.
The international organisation Complex Weavers has moved its exhibition - Complexity 2020: Innovations in Weaving - online. It is open 29 June – 1 September 2020. Complex Weavers is dedicated to expanding the boundaries of handweaving. The group encourages members to develop their own creative style, and to inspire others through research, documentation, and innovative ideas. Members challenge their skills and imagination by sharing information and innovations with fellow weavers – both directly and through study groups, seminars, the Complex Weavers Journal, and biennial juried exhibition Complexity.
Image: Senescence, detail. Wall hanging by Su Butler. Cotton warp, silk weft. Four-colour polychrome satin. Woven on a drawloom using 178 single units.
Every two years members are invited to submit new work for jurying, and the final selections are formally exhibited to the public as Complexity. This year the physical exhibition planned for Knoxville, Tennessee, has been replaced with a virtual exhibition, which has the added benefit of being accessible to a world-wide audience. As always, the show presents recent textile creations that bear within them some form of complexity, whether they have been woven on a dobby, treadle, table or Jacquard loom. All were made by hand and designed by humans, and all exhibit technical excellence.
Image: Two-Way Furrows, detail. Yardage by Wendy Morris. Silk warp, merino wool weft. Structure of twill blocks creates interchangeable blocks of vertical and horizontal furrows on a single-layer cloth. Handwoven on a computer-dobby loom.
Sondra Bogdonoff received the Surface Design Association Award of Excellence for Edge of the Woods. She said: "This piece was inspired by a fall scene at the edge of the woods, where weeds and flowers were changing color and providing a dense, tangled mat of color against the dark forest. This is a plain weave with weft floats. I’m using 12 bobbins of different colors in equal segments across each row, in an eight-row sequence — so there are 96 weft bobbins in all, with two rows of plain weave in between each row. The bobbins remain on the surface, forming wavy diagonal floats. Four rows of bobbins move to the right, and four move to the left.”
Visit Complexity 2020 at www.complexityexhibition.org.