A trip to the San Francisco Botanical Park, June 16, 2007.

1 Jul '07 5:59 pm

I, too, took a look at Lia's work on her website and found it incredible! Am I right in thinking that the pieces are really flat and that the folds, etc., are illusions woven in? If so, I can't imagine how anyone could keep all the planning for that in her head while weaving it!! Just wonderful!!

-gordonf

3 Jul '07 1:32 am

You are right that the folds are illusionistic or surface phenomena at least. Also I think you're right about no one being able to keep that kind of complexity in their head. Lia uses a jaquard loom in which every thread is independantly activated so that their is no need to create a "weave pattern" owing to the way the loom itself works as with regular loovs. However, you still need to engineer a pattern which will hold together with a good balance of over and under threads. The way she gets around holding it all in her head is using a computer, actually two of them. She uses on computer for working with the unage (usually of photgraphic origiin) and constructing the weave pattern and another one actually connected to the loom to translate the image from the computer to the loom. It keeps track of all t hat data and individually directs the loom to llift certain threads before Lia throws the shuttle. Since she still does this last part by hand she can still make decisions as she goes to alter the result as she sees fit. Well, that again is probably more than you'd want to know. I can go on once I get going sometimes.

3 Jul '07 10:38 am

Thanks, Mark, for the information! And, no, it wasn't too much! Does Lia have to write a programme for the computers to get the effect she wants, or do they get most of it from the photograph information? Did she invent this technique, or is it fairly widely used? So many questions!! Could this be done from regular photos of flowers, etc.?

All the best,

gordonf

3 Jul '07 11:54 am

Jacquard looms have been around a while. About 30 years ago she collected an old one from Lyon, France that is almost completely made of wood that was probably made in the early 1800's. I don't think she ever got that one to work. Then she found one in England, made in the late 1800's which she did get to work and on which she did a couple of her most successful pieces (they don't seem to be on her website). Then perhaps 15 years ago she got a smaller, much newer Japanese one. Now she has one from Norway that is really state of the art. All metal parts, micro-aircylinders lift each of the thousands of threads separately.

3 Jul '07 6:39 pm

Thanks, Mark, for the info. Now I know something that I didn't know yesterday!! I'll have to do some research on jacquard looms to try to understand what's so different about them.

Cheers!

gordonf

A trip to the San Francisco Botanical Park, June 16, 2007.

Lia's Work

Thanks Gordon for the shout out for Lia's work.

Wow!

She didn't invent it.

Thanks!