Elaine Duncan

Overall view of STI 2: Passages at the Handforth Gallery, Tacoma, WA

A friend, Christine Rivers, and I travelled to Tacoma, WA for the opening of the Small Tapestry International 2:  Passages exhibition sponsored by the American Tapestry Alliance on Saturday, June 4, 2011.  Featured speaker, Jean Pierre Larochette, spoke on “Reflections on Small Format Tapestries”.  To quote from the handout at the talks:  “One of my favorite American Painters, Seattle’s Mark Tobey, once said “I want vision in my work if I am to continue.  I want to look at pictures that not only arrest me, I want to look at pictures that detain me.”  Also from Jean Pierre:  “The first time I was irrevocably detinaed by the power of small format tapestry it was inCairo, Egypt, over thirty years ago.  I have been captured by the magic ever since.  In a nut shell this is the account of my experiences while trying to express the “universe” in a grain of sand—read a minimal, small weaving…–and of some of the people, such as my friend Gabriel Canales, who found that it is even possible to build a loom out of wooden matches, and weave about his life on it.”     A short break was followed by nine tapestry artists giving short talks about their work:  Cecilia Blomberg, Joyce Hayes, Barbara Heller, Ruth Jones, Audrey Moore, Terry Olson, Pam Patrie, Elisabeth Quick and myself.

The exhibition was displayed well in more intimate surroundings than Weaving Southwest, Taos, the previous venue.  Pieces were hung on the walls as well as displayed in individual plexiglas boxes on stands.  The viewers were drawn into each piece making connections.  I particularly liked the different approaches to framing in this exhibition.  I think the juror, Kay Lawrence, chose well, making an interesting and cohesive show, but still allowing for a wide variety of approaches.

After the opening at the Handforth Gallery, many of the viewers continued on the Brick Gallery only a couple of blocks away.  Here the members of TAPS (Tapestry Artists of Puget Sound) also had an exhibition, titled:  Warped, Beaten and Hung.  Many of the pieces in this show were much larger in scale than the small format show, making a great contrast between the two exhibitions.