The pieces are brilliantly vibrant and colourful and make me smile when my eyes rest upon them.
I had this inner urge to somehow frame these pieces, though a wooden frame just didn't seem to be the thing and they couldn't go 'under glass' which would subdue their visual zest and energy and my thoughts were aplenty and then ....... how about a woven frame?
The introduction of a textured frame to show off the brilliancy of the paintings was very enticing and the searching voice inside subsided and gave way to the voice which wonders about which yarns, colours, textures would be the necessary ones to really blend and pop with my sister's work.
On my tapestry loom at that point I was fortunate enough to have more warp still, from the last piece that I wove so getting started on the frame piece wasn't too time consuming. I just had to get it tied back to the bottom beam and start weaving.
As I got started the intent was to weave a tapestry which had holes in it where the paintings could slide in and look all natural.
This however didn't feel quite right since I didn't really know what would happen in the weaving and where in/on the weaving the paintings would go.
The yarn had finally ripened or my thoughts had ripened and it was time to execute an idea and go with the flow.
And this is what I did. I wove the piece in one solid piece, making use of the many different textures and thicknesses of the yarns available and with the subtle colour changes the piece wound its way along from start to finish.
The yarn was thick enough that when I cut the warp ends I could tie them in tight knots four and four and the piece holds together this way, the ends were sewn in on the back, approximately 1 inch up into the woven piece.
The finished piece on my wall is 94cm x 106cm.
My eyes know it when the 'PING' effect happens, the moment when your hands, head and eyes know that you don't have to change another thing right now.
The paintings were attached to the tapestry by using small paper clips which could slide into the weaving and the string at the back of the canvas could then loop over the paper clip, and voila, no sewing and not trauma to the tapestry, just happy paintings decorating and shining on top of an excitingly textured and colourful surface.
It was another journey where I had to follow the warp, the colour and the texture to where it felt good and right. Being able to trust your intuition in matters like these is such a blessing =-)