Elaine Duncan

Seven tapestry weavers arrived from British Columbia, Canada, Arizona, California, and Virginia, USA to Casa Tejedora, El Tuito, Jalisco on Saturday, January 23 for a 13 day tapestry retreat hosted by Jean Pierre Larochette and Yael Lurie.  This year’s retreat started with everyone sharing their new tapestries for the exhibition at the Naval Museo in Puerto Vallarta scheduled opening on February 3, 2010.  We started warping our looms and sharing our plans for the weaving and designing portions of our time.  Each weaver chose their own project as there was no set agenda this time.  Christine Rivers of Parksville, BC. chose to weave a piece for her corn series showing people harvesting the corn in the fields as her theme.  Mimi Heft from San Francisco, CA sketched a cob of corn, which she proceeded to weave in playful colours.  Olga Neuts from Tucson, AZ chose to spend the first half of the retreat sketching stalks of corn with advice from Yael and then spent the last half on a loom weaving a small sampler approximately 2+” wide which was delightful.  Lynn  Cosell from Virginia worked on geometric designs from her computer and then wove some special hachures as her sample.  Jackie Wollenberg from Fort Bragg, CA spent her time working on portable pin looms where she wove fine detailed tapestries in very small format utilizing all four selvages.  Her pieces were finished and included in the exhibition.  Donna Millen from Denman Island, BC brought a small brass pipe loom and a prepared cartoon inspired by ruins found at Pelanque, Mexico.  She chose a small portion of the ruin which showed the hand of a god holding the cob of corn.  It was very difficult to weave and Donna says she learned alot.  In preparation for the the retreat, I naturally dyed some textured and plain silks, linens, wools to use in a new series of tapestries I was planning to weave.  Only 4 1/2″ wide on the loom, each tapestry was to be woven approximately 5″ long.  The tapestries were based on photographs of nature — bark, ponds, lily pads, waterfalls, etc.  I was able to complete 2 pieces while there, with plans to weave another 5 while in Mexico and then one more when I got home.  I almost succeeded…got 6 woven in Mexico. 

We went on an overnight beach excursion to Tenacatita Beach, about 2-3 hour south of El Tuito.  Everyone enjoyed the hotel, the food, shopping with the vendors.  It was also very inspiring to look out to the ocean, and watch the birds and the fishermen. 

Everyone agreed that the time spent at Casa Tejedora was wonderful and they would like to visit again.

Jackie Wollenberg using a magnifier to see the fine detail in her tapestries.

Olga Neuts working on her tapestry

View towards La Manzanilla from Tenacatita Beach

Mimi, Olga, Jackie and Lynn shopping with the vendors