Cherry Lake

Here is the little tapestry I just finished. I referred to it earlier and showed you a picture of the back while it was still on the loom in this post. I love that these smaller works take me less time to actually weave, but the finishing and mounting seems to take so much longer. Perhaps it was all the complications caused by the pick and pick and the constant color changes... though I ended up liking the effect a great deal and will do something along the same lines again soon!

Here are a couple details.

This piece was inspired by a hike Emily and I took to Cherry Lake in the Sangre de Cristo mountains just north of Crestone, CO in early September. The aspens were changing all the way up the mountain and the range of color was phenomenal. I wanted the shape of the pick-and-pick form to mirror the beauty of the mountains as well as the beautiful colors of the trees.

And here is the actual Cherry Lake.

I just had to show you what I used to mount this piece. I had a disappointing trip to the hardware store on Sunday to get parts for this project. I needed some thin, uniform wood to mount the tapestry to and our small hardware store just didn't have anything I thought I could use. I went to MalWart WalMart and ended up getting two school rulers, but they were about half an inch shorter than I wanted them to be. As I was rummaging through my pile of weaving "sticks" at home hoping that I would find something I could use, I spotted the yardstick that my friends at Taos Fiber Arts gave me recently. I was sorry to cut it up, but it was perfect!

The aspen leaves have all fallen now. I am still hiking as the snow has only flown in small amounts up high thus far. But the end of my high altitude hiking season is fast approaching. I might be able to squeeze another month with my snowshoes if I'm lucky.

San Luis Valley far below. Look carefully to see the center pivot farms on the valley floor 4,000 feet below and the San Juans in the distance.

Rainshadow and crane feathers

I had the opportunity to visit this old tapestry of mine. It was bought by San Luis Valley Regional Medical Center in 2007 or 2008 and is hanging in their outpatient clinic. The piece is called Rainshadow and honestly, it is one of my favorites. I'm not sure why I like it so much. I did a companion piece with the exact same design but different colors which I did not like as much. There was something about the color of Rainshadow and the way the center square glows that I really liked.

So this piece has been hanging between a door to a medical hallway full of doctor's offices and the therapy office. I thought it might need a cleanup after 5 years, but it seems to be in good shape.

Current linen storage beneath it aside, it was fun to see it again.

And on my evening walk I found a crane feather. The cranes have been feeding in the barley field behind our house the last few days and they have clearly been walking along the acequia which my neighbor recently burned. I suppose the bugs are easier to find when the grass is gone.

These photos are for Tommye Scanlin who is working on some beautiful feathers lately. I especially enjoyed this post about her process working with feather images and how she manipulated the images to create a tapestry design.

Sunset looking west from my backyard toward the South San Juan mountains