Imagine you are sitting quietly in a corner of a field, or under a tree in a woodland, or on a rock looking out over moorland. You can hear a bird calling nearby, you can feel the wind gently on your back, you can see the shadows of clouds over the landscape in front of you, and the scent of recent rain on the ground wafts by.
Art gives you the opportunity to observe all this, to record it, and – most importantly – to savour the experience.
If you’re an active person, the sedentary nature of making art in the outdoors will slow you down in a positive way, encouraging you to observe closelywhat is around you in a way that just isn’t possible when you’re cycling or running through the countryside. If you’re less able to be active, to go far or fast outdoors, making art gives you a reason to take the time to be outdoors; you really don’t need to go far from your home or car to spot a bit of nature that’s worth turning into art.
What, me? Do art?
“But I can’t do art!” I hear you wail silently. That’s what I thought too, until I discovered tapestry weaving. And that in turn allowed me to find out that the put-downs from my school art teacher were misplaced; I can do art. Just not as he was trying to get me to do it.
Over the past 15 years or so, I have had wonderful snatches of time while on family camping and walking holidays, as well as purposeful art-y time in the outdoors, sitting and weaving the view. I look at each woven tapestry and remember the experience of being out in nature, recording my small interpretation of that particular bit of the world around me. Some of it isn’t fantastic quality art, but so what? Each one holds a memory. Each one was an experience of time outdoors in nature, time well spent. And there are many tapestries that I do think are beautiful – an added bonus!
Art isn’t just drawing and painting. Tapestry weaving is basically just putting yarn in and out of pieces of string on a simple frame (to paraphrase my husband’s words!). You don’t need to know lots of complicated techniques to be able to create something that is very visually appealing. You don’t need expensive kit or lots of it; the basics will fit easily into your normal walking daypack without weighing you down.
What does a woven tapestry look like?
Here are some examples, making use of simple shapes and colour combinations to make a tiny piece of art.
This thin strip is a very close observation of all the colours on a briar rose, each one merging into the next. No need to try to represent the shape of the flower, the colour says it all. I see this and remember the wild rose field boundary on a local farm.
This textured tapestry is my representation of the bark of a French plane tree. I see this and remember the balmy warmth of a summer’s day in Lamalou les Bains in the Haut Languedoc.
This sculptured tapestry is one corner of a rockpool on the south Devon coast, the result of a few hours of snatched time while my parents looked after the children and before the tide came in.
Finally, the landscape at the start of this blog is the view from my tent when camping with my family on the Scillies, many years ago. I see this and remember sunshine, sea breeze and laughter, morning coffee to hand while weaving from my camping chair.
What about kit?
The basic kit I take with me is:
- a simple wooden frame, usually an old picture frame that I’ve bought from a charity shop, ‘warped up’ with the string already on it so that I’m ready to weave;
- some yarn, often wool but it could be silk, cotton, linen, even occasionally nettle cordage;
- scissors and a kitchen fork. Yes, that’s right, a fork! I use it to beat down the yarn that I weave in and out of the strings.
And I then put everything into a waterproof bag that slips into my daypack together with a flask with a hot drink and my picnic lunch or snacks. I like to be comfortable while I’m weaving, so depending on where I’ll be, I either have a sitmat or camping chair.
A personal reflection
My own relationship with the outdoors comes in different shapes and sizes. I am a keen ultra-distance trail runner, where my training runs give me wonderful thinking time and inspiration for designing tapestries or spots to go back to for an afternoon’s weaving, as well as a wonderful way to explore the outdoors and keep myself fit. I really enjoy wandering around my local area spotting wildlife, which always gets me wondering about how I would represent what I see in my art. And there’s nothing better than lying on a grassy spot in the spring sunshine, watching the sun dapple through the new green leaves, just being, not thinking.
Tapestry weaving has shown me yet another dimension to exploring nature, where the experience itself carries on through my enjoyment of the tapestry I’ve created. The act of creativity demands observation, it rewards me with my own piece of special woven tapestry. Someone else might choose a different artform – painting, drawing, nature journalling, sculpture, land art – but it feels to me as if the most important thing is that it gives us all a peaceful, thoughtful way to experience the outdoors.
Our guest blogger, Irene, lives in the Scottish Highlands, revelling in her local outdoor playground. Her adventure life includes dips in her local lochan, trail running, wildlife watching, winter skiing and a bit of hill walking for variety! This balances her more sedentary passion for tapestry weaving. With a colleague, she runs Nearly Wild Weaving, a small business that offers online and in-person tapestry weaving activities, all with a focus on nature.
Website: Nearly Wild Weaving
@nearlywildweaving on Instagram and Facebook