One of the Scream paintings is set to be sold this spring.  (New York Times story) $80 million is expected!  I’ve displayed my Scream tapestry many times in the past few years, and been asked if it is for sale on several occasions.  Oh no, I said, it would cost way too much.

I wonder.  If I charged $1200 (that would surely cover a plane ticket to Norway), it would be only .000015 the cost of the real thing!

I recently finished a portrait of my Norwegian immigrant great-grandmother Gunvalda, in which I used color to represent light and shade.  The head shot was adapted from one of the few existing photos of her.  She is standing with her daughter Val, likely outside a farm building.  It would be so interesting to know the occasion for pearls and fancy clothing. It must the the 1920s, as Val is dressed in a flapper-inspired dress.  Gunvalda’s attire is still Victorian.

A valuable weaving lesson!  It always helps to take a break from your weaving, and it always helps to look at a piece from several vantage points, especially from a distance.  While the tapestry was underway I brought it to the Minnesota Weavers Guild to demonstrate during the Fiber Fair.  I happily chatted with fellow weavers and visitors to the Guild and made some progress.   Following the lines of the cartoon behind the warp threads, I wove the lower nose area and then the top of the nose.  In the photo of the incomplete piece, you can see that there is a break in the line of the nose edge.  That was how I drew the cartoon, and it seemed like a good choice at the time.

After the Fiber Fair, I brought the loom home and set it up again.  Instantly it struck me that the line of the nose was wrong, so much so that it seemed like someone should have pointed it out!  Since I had woven quite a bit past that area, I used a needle and wove in some of the darker yarn and made the line complete.

Gunvalda is complete and as usual, the things I would change outnumber those I would keep in a second attempt.  But it’s time to move on to a new design challenge and a new relative.

The mother of my friend Dominque, a psychoanalyst from Quebec, was a weaver in her home village of Sant’Agata in Calabria. Dominique remembers that she was the one who was called on to set up looms for other village weavers. He still has linens and blankets she wove in Italy, before emigrating to Quebec when Dominique was ten.   In her new life she worked hard as a seamstress and in factories, and raised two successful sons. She died two years ago, but her memory remains close to her family.  Her weaving too- Dominque keeps a thick rug made with rags in his car, ready for picnics.

In the Italy of Dominiques’s childhood everyone understood the creation of textiles; they saw it happen in their homes and in shops.  In the next village, “Rose The Crazy One” was a carder of wool.  in the warm climate of Southern Italy so much of life took place on the streets. Dominique and his friends would watch as Rose sat, clad in black, pulling woolen fleece between the metal-tined cards, straightening, scraping.  ”She scared us,” Dominique said.  Rose stared vacantly into space as she combed, combed.  Sometimes she beat her chest and exclaimed. Perhaps only a psychoanalyst would examine his childhood feelings so deeply.  He said that it was frightening.  The dangerous-looking metal tines pulled against one another, evoking worry and fear of castration in the small boys.

The discussion turned to mythological Penelope, who wove a shroud by day and each night unravelled her work.  The unravelling has a link to analysis, of stopping to unravel and examine what has gone before in your life.

We haven’t left, and I already look forward to returning next year.  I wonder if King Olav of Norway had such a great time when he was here; he stayed in the same room.

Traditional Norwegian costumes – bunads – are all about status.  Silver, embroidery, expensive imported fabrics, beading, elaborate headdresses – there were many ways to use clothing to show your wealth or identify where you live or your marital status.  Each costume element has meaning and symbolism.  During the trip we heard some interesting stories about head coverings.

Hege Therese Nilsen, who taught the knitting class on the Vesterheim Textile Study Tour, has worked for Husfliden in Bergen for nine years, specializing in bunads. Early on, when she had been working for only a month or so, an American woman came in asking about obtaining a cap for the Hallingdal bunad.  A cap?  Hege Therese replied that she knew of no cap for the costume, only the elaborate white headresses.  A co-worker kicked her under the counter, and later explained the Norwegian-American tradition.  It was difficult for immigrant women to care for the white head coverings and some women in America began added an embroidered cap to their bunads, one that would have been worn only by a child in Norway.

Hege Therese also described a pointed knitted cap for men, topped with a tassel.  If a man walked down the street with the tassel in front, let him pass.  He was intent on his mission. On the other hand, if the tassel was flipped to the back, he was ready to chat and visit.  Hege Therese joked that her husband could use that cap when he was coming home from training, which I assumed meant working out.  He talks to everyone.  “It takes him and hour and a half!” she said.  When we visited the Sunnhordaland Museum another story was told about that cap by hatmaker Kjersti Mo.  Some men who wore the man’s Sunnhordaland bunad didn’t like the cap, which looks a bit un-serious.  So Kjersti did research in photos of the late 1800s and discovered that many men wore a black hat.  Now that has become an alternative choice to top off a Sunnhordaland man’s bunad.

At the Norsk Institutt for Bunad og Folkedrakt, Camilla Rudrud talked about the use of costume to clearly identify a woman’s status within the community.  For example, when a woman was married, the band at the bottom of her costume may change color.  The head coverings would change.  It was easy for a young man to scan the room at a gathering and to know just which women were unmarried, and where they lived.  In the Hallingdal costume the head covering for a married woman was elaborate; hair braided together with woven bands, covered with a stiff fan-shaped form, tied with a silk scarf. and draped with a white kerchief.  Unmarried women wore a giant pom-pom-like tassel on the tops of their heads, like the one shown in this painting by Gerhard Munthe.   If you were an unmarried woman of any age you still wore the tassel.  Camile knew of documentation of women into their nineties still using the pom-pom headband that was much more suited to a youthful face.

Some memories stand out.  A couple of years ago I was finishing a weaving (shown here) and discovered I would be short of a lovely bright gold color.  As usual, I was weaving with Rauma spelsau yarn purchased from Syvilla.  I searched everywhere, in stashes of leftover yarn, in all my cupboards.  It was time for a late-night email to Syvilla.  Help!  Normally, Syvilla grabbed the needed skeins from her shelf, packed them in a padded envelope or small box, and walked them to the Decorah Post Office before four p.m.  The next day the box turned up on my doorstep.  It seemed instant.  I was like a junkie, needing my Norwegian yarn fix, and she was the ever dependable supplier.

This time there was no bright gold on her shelves, but the shipment from Norway was due soon.  She had an idea!  She happened to have her loom warped with the yarn I needed.  She wasn’t going to be weaving it soon, she explained in a note, so she just TOOK MANY THREADS OFF THE SIDE OF HER PROJECT ON THE LOOM.  She didn’t ASK me if this was necessary, which it really was not, she just did it.   This gave me enough yarn to finish the piece I was weaving.

A package from Syvilla was always like receiving a gift.  One year, it really was.  A mystery box contained a plastic storage box, and in the box a whole set of small skeins of tapestry yarn, all the colors of the Rauma rainbow.  Fellow weavers would understand the jolt of pleasure this brought.  But why?  Syvilla wrote that I had been her best customer in the previous year, so it was an appreciation gift.  I’m still using that yarn when I need a spot of color, or in small tapestry projects.

No trip to Decorah was complete without a visit to Syvilla’s yarn shop in the basement of her home.  It’s so difficult to choose yarns from tiny snips pasted on a color card.  At Syvilla’s you could sit in a well-worn easy chair, drink in the colors of the skeins lining the walls, and pull them down into sets.  No – too sharp!  No – too boring. No – too blue!  Finally the right combination was at my feet, and soon in my bag.  What a privilege it was to have Syvilla’s advice and support and friendship.

Syvilla had a sharp mind, and her advice came from reading and study and hands-on experimentation. She came to our Scandinavian Weavers Study Group in Minneapolis, hours away from home.  I think these were important gatherings for her.  She added to our lives.  She didn’t give up her fight for life and health easily.  I remember her telling me some time back that sitting at the loom was hard for her; the cancer pain was too much.  What she could do in the meantime, she said, was to sit with graph paper and sketch out diagrams for rutevev (square weave).  She was ever hopeful that weaving time would come again.

This is a sad day, but one filled with good memories.

A krokbragd hanging, one of the “Old Pattern” series I wove, won a blue ribbon.  (Do you notice the “Minnesota State Senate” shirt?  I was working that day at the Senate State Fair booth.)

A second wall hanging to win a blue ribbon was a Sami reindeer image on a rag rug background. I posted about this one earlier.

A boundweave hanging in three-shaft Flesberg technique won a blue ribbon and a sweepstakes prize in the rug category.

And finally, a linen table runner in tavlebragd (monksbelt) technique won a second-place red ribbon and the Doris Tufte Award for Creative Loom Weaving.

I’ve thought about entering pieces in the State Fair previously but it always seemed difficult to get down to the building on just the right day to deliver them.   I am especially grateful to the Weaver’s Guild this year for coordinating a group drop-off, allowing me to deliver my pieces to the Weavers Guild office at a convenient time.  Sue Bye, who brought the pieces to the Fair, said she was lucky to get in.  She was the last one in line; they closed the doors behind her.  Thanks Sue!