Tuesday's Textiles and Tea featured wonderful tapestry maker Susan Maffei.
I had only known of her before as the longtime partner and collaborator with the renowned Archie Brennan, who really brought tapestry into the present as a mainstream art.
After his death in very old age a couple of years ago, she has been regrouping and continuing her solo artwork.
She's very much tuned into the earth and the interlocking of life and human interference with natural rhythms.
She abandoned the use of cartoons, images of the project attached to the back of the warp as a guide to the weaver, some years ago and began to weave designs from memory of the scenes. This is virtuoso work. Very few people have the total visual recall necessary for this work.
She also switched from her earlier traditional training of working from the back of the loom, as in those famous tapestries we see in museums. There the workers had a mirror set up to follow their progress. Brennan always worked from the front, and she found she preferred that.
She also likes the concept of hiddenness, boxes and books opening to reveal the work, but not entirely.
She likes to work in series, as in this history of women group
Still a very active worker though Covid restrictions have affected her a lot since she's not very interested in the use of Zoom for teaching, and would much rather be in person.
That's how she's always worked, with groups such as the Wednesday Group she and Archie founded in New York many years ago.
I'm very glad she agreed to this event despite her misgivings, because she's a strong artist in her own right.
Not that Archie ever overshadowed her, since he was a great champion of her work. Unlike many male artists towards their female artist partners, names omitted so as not to give them yet more attention!
She has a website, too, go there for more.
I had a lovely email this week from the executive director of HGA all excited about these blogposts amping up the signal for their series. As handsome Son would say: np!
In other news I thought you'd like to know I had what's known as a rush of brains to the head yesterday.
I had an epiphany about home made pizza, namely that you don't have to make a whole one! You can cut the dough in half and save one half for another day, then do rhe toppings on the remaining mezzaluna! How long it's taken for me to realize this.
So I acted on it
Mushroom, sausage, mozzarella, Parmesan. Enough for a large lunch, and no leftovers to reheat, never as good on day two.
And after the heights of Jhumpa Lahiri to the easy reading of Me before You
When everyone was reading this a few years ago I noticed, more than once, friends starting to recommend it, then suddenly changing the subject.
I now understand why. They probably thought it was tactless to recommend a novel about an untrained woman suddenly responsible for the care of a quadriplegic incontinent man and the terror of learning about how to do it safely, to someone who was doing exactly that!
Except I did all of it 24/7, no attendant nurse, no leaving at night. This blog was most of my communication with the world outside the house and the visiting doctors and physio. I will never forget the support and friendship that came to me here. Just about saved me.
At this point, nearly eleven years on, I can read this. It's an engaging book, marketed as a romance novel, but a lot more than that. Evidently the first of a trilogy, and we'll see if I feel like going on to the other parts.
I'm reading this on Kindle, as a change from the last one which I had as an audiobook.
Happy day, everyone!
