The work of tapestry artist Sylvia Heyden fascinates and inspires me. So much so that I joined a study group in which the goal is to look closely at her techniques, and take them for a spin ourselves. This study group is hosted By Kennita Tully - and can be accessed by joining her class “Elements in Tapestry”. I highly recommend.

We are working through S.Heydens’s book “The making of Modern Tapestry”. Chapter one explored half rounds and triangles, and resulted in some lovely test peices

Chapter Two is all about Horizontal and Vertical Bands. I am working on that idea now. I like to have a natural world reference to my work, and so I decided to indicate trees, as vertical bands. The piece will end up (I hope) as 8 inches wide by 24 inches long. The vertical bands are very long slits. Like the whole way. They are attached to each other at the bottom, will be attached at the top, and also along the way with sumac “branches”. I don’t plan to sew the slits shut. I plan to hang the piece horizontally, so the bands will run side to side instead of up and down. I hope that gravity causes the slits to droop a bit. Or, maybe not. We’ll see!