One Thread at a Time: The Making of Woven Shades of Blue with Gold Triptych Art for Lead Bank in the Crossroads KC

*Art Opening; Woven Shades of Blue with Gold Triptych Art by Debbie Barrett-Jones*

Friday May 6th, 3:30-6pm.

1801 Main St

Kansas City, MO 64108

Careful consideration went into choosing the right colors for this piece. Josh Rowland of Lead Bank in the Crossroads and I decided that the design with the shades of blue would be great for the space in the lobby that provides a sense of simplicity and complexity at the same time, using a gradual color gradation from white to dark blue interrupted by a bold golden yellow stripe. The the weft woven all in gold, helps the blues to pop out visually depending on how/and where you view it. The amazing thing about a woven piece of textile is that you can see something different from you view of the piece from right to left and top to bottom.

We chose a design with less colors throughout the piece to help viewer not to be too overwhelmed or over stimulated visually by an art piece. An art piece that is calming, intriguing, beautiful and thought provoking.

Here's it something from my artist statement. That I think is perfect for this piece.

"It is so easy to live each day being distracted and overwhelmed with worries and the chaos of our busy lives that we don’t take the time to slow down and allow ourselves to enjoy a calming moment. The goal in creating my art is to be able to give my viewer the opportunity to have time to slow down and breath, being stimulated by visual art that is pleasing to the eye and peaceful to the mind."

The Process

Winding more than 26 yarn skeins

Yarn skeins soaking in hot water before dyeing.

Almost ready to start dyeing.

After I have spent hours and hours of winding yarn skeins from white cones of yarn, dye all those skeins using a percentage gradation dyeing process each in their own dye bath, rinsing and drying all 27 of those skeins from the lightest of blues gradating to a dark blue; next up is winding each one of those dyed skeins into a usable "yarn ball". One by one, I set the yarn skein back on the metal swift yarn winder, cut the original knot that keeps the yarn skein together, connect one of the loose end threads to the ball yarn winder, and away it goes. As I turn the handle of the ball winder that the yarn on the swift winder is connected to, the swift winder moves round and round; stopping every so often when there is a yarn tangle that needs to be fixed and eventually when the yarn skein is finished winding into a ball.

All the winding for this project took many hours and days to finish. While I am winding I sometimes watch movies or listen to music or audio books, but lately, for this project I found myself listening to nothing but of the sound that the winders make. At first it can feel very uncomfortable not being entertained when doing something so monotonous and "boring". I can also loose my patience, especially when there are tangles in the yarn. But when I try to focus on the present moment as the metal swift and yarn on it goes round and round; I find myself enjoying the quiet, calming and almost meditative state I am able to experience. My worries and the stress that I carry that moment are a little less and I have room to be thankful for more.

These balls of yarn are now in a form that can easily be used in the next step of the weaving process which is winding the yarn on a warping board, to measure out exactly how many individual pieces of yarn I will need for the width and length of each woven textile to then thread on my weaving loom.

Wind the yarn at the Warping Board. My warp, the yarn that will go on the loom, is 3 and 1/2 yards long.

Threading the yarn through the reed. 20EIP which means 20 throughs per inch. So I have more that 880 individual threads that are each 3 and 1/2 yards long.