The art I make has been a long time coming. I have been a fiber artist since I was old enough to thread a needle, but I learned to weave when I was 22. I began with a Navajo weaving class, then apprenticed with Rachel Brown at Weaving Southwest. For years I wove blankets and rugs in the Southwestern, weft-faced tradition. I read all of the weaving books I could get my hands on and found myself drawn to the ancient, Indigenous structures of South America. I taught myself to weave on a blackstrap loom and slowly, painstakingly unlocked some of the secrets of Andean weave structures. I read technical books like Weaves of the Incas by Ulla Nass and Double Woven Treasures From Old Peru by Adele Cahlander and Suzanne Baizerman, and later, the works of Laverne Waddington.
I eventually mastered Andean pebble weave. I got a commission to weave a series of my own invention. I ended up creating an idea that needed more than 2 colors.
Shine- my first 3 color Andean pebble weave piece
I figured out 3 color pebble weave from Ula Nass's book and enjoyed the simplicity of it compared to 4 color Andean pebble weave, which creates a double-faced cloth and requires two weft rows for one finished row of weaving. 3 color pebble weave has a clear side where the design shows, and a reverse side that does not. I am now working with this same technique, but adding in more colors, I wove Emergence with 4 colors, then Emerge with 5.
Emergence
Emerge
I have not read about this anywhere, but as these basic Andean pebble weave structures are centuries old, I feel sure that other weavers at some point in time have tried this. That thought continues to intrigue me as my soul searches for meaning in my weaver's path.