CHT Tour Continues

We are continuing on our tour of College Station/Bryan, Texas exhibits while attending Contemporary Handweavers of Texas conference.  This was the most interesting exhibit--how do you combine flowers with weaving elements?  That was the project directed to the students in this class.

Our first view of the floral design building was this giant wall weaving that was created by Brazos Valley Weavers in 1983 when the building first opened.  There was a request for a weaving that would give the space 'life'.  It took several years of designing and implementing the hanging.

Here is a close-up of the warp and weft.  This was quite the accomplishment for the weaving guild.

Now, take a tour of the facility to see how the students incorporated weaving elements into their floral design work.

Members of the Brazos Valley Weavers added their special weaving touches to the displays as well.

This design used a shopping bag from a boutique as part of their element.

Woven Shibori

Chicken wire or mesh graph was used frequently in several of the design pieces, giving a perfect grid for weaving.

The students were allowed to use one special piece from the permanent collection of art.

From the Benz Design building we journeyed to the Bush Presidential Library where we greeted with a special tour of the third floor, which houses all 3-D art pieces that have been given as gifts to the president and first lady while they are in office.
We were shown 11 textile pieces from the collection:  Needlepoint artwork which was a depiction of a carnival scene (given by the Prime Minister of Bangladesh on their meeting in March, 1992)

2.  100% silk tel kimono with golf/white flowers stitched on the back; given as a domestic (American citizen) gift
3.  Cotton Mola dress given to Barbara Bush from Guillermo Endara, President of Republic of Panama. 
4.  Fendi Shawl, fur trimmed with punched fabric design, given by Livia Andreotti, wife of the Prime Minister of Italy: valued at $3,000 in 1990
5.  Green Sari wrap with golf and silver threaded designs embellished with colored gemstones: given on 11-21-1990 from Jawhara Ibrahim Al-Abrihim, wife of Kind of Saudi Arabia (appraised value was $2,000 in 1990)
6.  Chinese silk brocade, given by Madame Yude Wang, wife of the Ambassador of the Peoples Republic of China.
7.  Traditional Russian Black wool shawl "Pavlovski shawl" is 5'x5' and given in 1990 as birthday present by Soviet Ambassador to the U.S.
8.  Two pieces of brocade fabric from Queen Sirikit of Kingdom of Thailand.
9.  This one was classified as 'tapestry' but we all decided, after an up close and personal viewing, that it was needlepoint.  It was given by Chinese government in 1997.

We felt that this large hanging was needlepoint.  It is hard to see from the photo but up close, it certainly looks like needlepoint although the information on the piece says it came from the Shanghai Red Star Weaving Factory.
10.  Woven wall hanging given by Amata Kabua, President of Republic of Marshall Islands.
11.  Hand Knit Purse was one of the many gifts given during their tour of  Kuwait in 1993.

All these were given as gifts to the President and First Lady, but these are gifts to the people of United States .  The President and First Lady are not allowed to keep any gift that is valued over $250 and if they wish to keep the gift they must pay for it.

Kente Cloth

Our tour during Contemporary Handweavers of Texas conference took us to our first stop at Brazos Valley Museum to an exhibit of Kente Cloth.  Wrapped in Pride, Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity was a feature the Museum of Natural History and presented in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Arts.

This beautiful exhibit explores the art of making Kente cloth, its symbolism in the cultures of Africa and its expression of identity in African American communities.  This garment was displayed in the main lobby.

Photos from the region were also on display to show how the garments are worn in everyday life.

This fabric was machine printed and shows some of the different designs woven.

This fabric was woven with design, using inlay techniques.

The strips are woven in narrow bands and then shown together to make a larger length and width.

These bands were unique in design.

Inlay designs give different meanings to each region.

The African map shows the location of Ghana.

Color plentiful!

A typical loom used to weave this colorful cloth.

Weft bobbin threads used in crossing the warp.

The warp is placed at the back of the loom and this photo shows how the warp is given weight and tension.

Close-up of inlay technique.

Notice how the narrow bands are stitched.

The narrow bands on display were used for touch and feel.  They also show the different patterns.  The weft and warp designs each have their own unique meaning.
This exhibit will be on display till August 11, 2011 and is well worth the trip to the Natural History Museum.

Handweavers of Texas

Contemporary Handweavers of Texas meet biannually in different regions of the state during odd years.  This year it was held in College Station/Bryan at the Hilton Hotel Conference.  Unfortunately, we were only able to attend a couple of days (our grandson was graduating the same weekend) so we popped in Friday before our tour around the area galleries.  We visited one of the two day workshops.

This workshop was focused on color and how it 'pops' on the warp.

It is intersting how different weave structures and color play on each other, either in the warp or the weft.

Here is the draft for one of the loom setups.

Here is the woven look from the draft.

One of the special features during the conference is the hallway where individual guilds can set up their exhibits and display what their members have been working on throughout the year since the last conference.

This display had many features to admire.



What lovely woven towels!



These are more of the lovely woven towels.  Much to our disappointment, we were not allowed to take photos of the members or instructors exhibit pieces. Hopefully, the website for Contemporary Handweavers of Texas will have photos. More later on the special exhibits that were featured on the tour in future blog posts.

Messina Hof R & R

It is time for a little R & R.  Before we head to our state weavers' conference in College Station, Texas we took a short two day detour to Messina Hof Winery, located outside of Bryan, Texas.  Our room was appropriately named 'Messina', but we could have our choice between nine other rooms.

Grapes and wine are featured throughout the vineyard and this was the railing around the balcony outside our room.

Even the bronze statures around the grounds are reflective of wine.

In the evening, as guests, you are invited to the wine bar where you can choose any wine from their menu to enjoy along with a selection of cheese.

The gardens are planted with flowers and herbs (which are used in the restaurant).

Want to have your wedding on the grounds, this is the perfect spot.

We took a tour of the wine making area, along with the processing center.  This was in the storage area where boxes and boxes were stacked waiting for shipment.

On this morning the bottling was in full swing with Muscat Canelli, sweet white wine.

The barrels outside the storage room were hosting Merlot, up next for the bottling process.  If you are ever in the need of some R&R and are in this area, drop into the winery and enjoy a little of this comfort.

Spinning Memories

This weekend brings memories and honors not only for those who have fought and served in the military but for others who have paved the highway in various avenues and walks of lives.  Many will honor their family members with flower and flag laying on graves, with prayers of thanks for their dedication, while this blog post today will honor friends who provided quiet meanings to our lives.......nothing blaring about their 'common' everyday journey but a touch of sense and purpose to our otherwise mundane days.

This bag of carded green cotton comes from the garden of a dear departed friend, Jo, who gave us many happy times of sheer bliss--her whit, her personality, her joy of living.  During the last couple of years of her fragile life, Jo bought a sack of home grown cotton to our January spin-in.  She was distributing her worldly possessions so she could live in a smaller facility.  The green cotton had been hand ginned by Jo's paper thin fingers.  She was giving me one of her prized accumulations.  Reluctantly,  I took the green cotton and sent it off to be carded into sliver--promising to return the prepared fiber to her the following year; but come the following year, Jo was way to frail to even think about spinning again.

And now as we treadle and spin this special gift, memories flood back--memories of Jo--she was one of the original members of January spin-in when it begun over 23 years ago; when others were triumphantly declaring how much they spun during the event,  she always proclaimed the LEAST spun at our annual spin-in.  Memories of the time we travelled together to 1984 Dallas Convergence  and with a stop at a restroom, the pale look on her face when she emerged from the stall--she had just flushed one of her $50 dollar bills that had fallen from her money belt!  She thought it was loose paper on the floor but when it swished out of sight, she realized what it was...............but, she laughed it off and we continued on our road trip.

These might be cast-offs of debris that has fallen from the fiber, but each of these little specks brings a sense of Jo to my fingers as the cotton is spun, bobbin after bobbin.

And as the sliver is one continuous length, that was the way Jo's life was--continuous and ongoing with love and laughter.

This label might be faded from years of usage, but the memories of Dempsey are strong each time this tool of the trade is pulled out to be used.   The many tools he built with his hands; the wool from his sheep herd that laid on the bobbins always bring memories of days of yore and the times we had on his farm.  It never fails every year when the first two weekends of April roll around, that our thoughts travel to those days when we would drive the distance to meet with other spinners at Dempsey's farm.  It was here that we could pick out our sheep fleece 'on the hoof' and Dempsey would pull up the marked sheep and set his clippers to the wool--yes, this was ours!  His lovely wife, Brenda, would make her molasses cake (made from their homegrown sugar cane) and we would all gather under the pine trees with our wheels, visit, treadle away as we were serenaded by their musical friends. Dempsey's sense of building relationships was always there.  This was our common bond.

This time it is bobbins containing Jo's green cotton that are resting in the 'lazy kate' so two friends, who might have met once or twice or never, are reunited in this simple chore of plying.  And the memories can continue...................

As we ply Jo's green cotton with Dempsey's lazy kate, our memories tumble out and about us.