Textiles and Tea, Melissa English Campbell

Yesterday's presentation ran into a couple of snags. One was that I got engrossed in my own art and missed the first half of it. The other was the sound quality from the featured artist's location,  which made it difficult to follow her explanations. 

I remedied the first by checking another source and found I hadn't missed much, she spending ages on her early life without connecting it much to her art. 

I'm guessing that her unconventional approach, painting and weaving together, are a product of being exposed to several cultures and social patterns at an early age, though.

The actual how of this work is still not clear to me, though its power definitely is.

Better just show you and see if you get the method!

She describes her intent as taking the grid of weaving and disrupting it with painting. She creates abstract art and portraits using this approach.

What we're seeing is a painted warp woven with a painted weft. In a way she's creating her canvas as she's painting on it.

She's a happy collaborator, too, when she can be, with Praxis, whose director was presented here a few weeks ago, Jessica Pinsky. In fact she's been one of Pinsky's indigo growers this year when personal attendance and teaching was ruled out by Covid.

And despite being internationally famous, exhibited and honored in all the posh places, a longtime university teacher herself, she still takes classes to continue learning.

I need to learn more about her, since I have many questions. The questions she got and answered were all about the loom, the paint, the tech of the thread, none about the art. So that leaves a lot of room for learning more.

Oh, and her favorite tea is Lapsang Souchong, also Handsome Partner's favorite. The host had never heard of it, which stunned me, considering the underlying motif of the series. But maybe she's more of an herbal tea fan.

This series is really showing wonderful art, far removed from the impression I'd had of the somewhat linear, methodical, thinking of established floor loom weaving. Enriching is exactly the word.