To envision the big and enlarge the small
Approaching the distant
Technique: Weave, Double width, Hopsack/ Extended panama
Material: Linen threads, reactive dye
3 x 6 meter
In the blue weave I have dyed the warp and weft. Together they weigh ca 28,5 kg, and have been dyed in 5 shades of blue, with a various mix of 3 different pigments (reactive dyes), dyed in 28 color baths. If I would lay out the warp as a continuous long thread it would measure 14 080 meters (14 km).
Sails of the forest
Technique: Weave, Double width, Hopsack/Panama
Material: Linen threads
Weight: ca 15 kg
3 x 6 meter
Metamorphosis of textiles – Threads are dyed, woven and joined together. In the weave, the construction and the surface are the same. The weave gets a shape, it is temporary and changeable. Everything can change. Folds, unfolds, rolls up, hangs, carries, clamped, stretched. Eternally transformative.
In the loom, all threads are under tension, it is integral to the construction, so the threads may be interlaced into the weave. A tarpaulin in the city is both used for construction and protection, it stands for change in the city landscape. When stretched between trees in the forest it can be a shelter for the night, becoming both ceiling and the sky, this textile layer in-between.
To go up in format in the weave, requires that the smallest element also goes up in scale. Each thread must be thicker. This is to balance the relationship between the format and the content. For the weave to have a balance, this is required. It is a zoom in and magnification. To get closer, into the weave, and the technique, and visualize these. Mostly it is about a feeling in the body, as if the material must be in balance, have weight and land, in itself and in connection to the floor and the room. And in order to land, each component must also be enlarged.
The magnification is found in the construction of the weave. The magnification of plain weave, to panama and beyond. The larger scale is also found in the color, in the enlarged squares of the blue weave. Large scale is distance and blue is the color of the distance. To weave a large-scale weave in blue is to approach the distant, to get close to it.
Finally, the enlarged scale is also present in the construction of the shape – when the weave is made – how it is shaped and hung up. Just as each thread is enlarged, so must the hanging. I use straps, as they are not only a solid form of hanging that reinforces the sense of weight in the weave, but also brings with it, associations to place, work and construction. The shape of how the weaves are presented now, refers to textiles as a work tool. The blue weave to a tarpaulin. The undyed linen weave to a body, and at the same time to jute sacks that are hanged up, waiting in between sowing and harvesting. A form of utility textile, used and rests in the space in between one job and another, on the way to a new event, witness to what is going on around.
klaraalbertsson.com/
@klaralinneaalice
