Sharon Alderman
November Gold
2011

About the Item

November Gold, 11.5 x 17 inches (Framed size: 19 x 24 inches), fiber cotton sewing thread & gold leaf, $1,600 Sharon Alderman has published two weaving instructional books and traveled the world conducting workshops about the techniques she has mastered. Her weavings are composed of sewing thread woven on a full-size loom. Each piece radiates throughout with subtle gradations in hue, leaving the viewer in awe of its complexity and delicate structure. Like a fine relic or a painting of another ilk, Alderman’s weavings are carefully attached to mat board and framed under glass. FROM THE ARTIST: I have been weaving for nearly fifty years. When I first began, it felt like I had come home, at last. It felt familiar and “right”. My passion is color. As long as there is light enough for the cones in my eyes to work, I am entertained. (Have you ever looked at walls painted the same color and noticed that in the corner the color changes a little bit? I have!) Nature is a constant source of color inspiration. I have woven about Zion, Bryce, the Northern lights in January in Fairbanks, AK. Sometimes I kneel on the grass in my garden so I can look closely to see all the colors that are there. When I travel, I take my cotton color charts with me along with a notebook; I record where I was, the time of year, and time of day and record the numbers and names of the colors I see. Proportion as well as color goes into that notebook. When I come back to my studio, I can pull out the notebook and create an abstraction of what I saw. The first step in making a piece involves my selecting the spools or tubes of cotton sewing thread and putting them into a shallow box. I put that box where I will walk by it often, and almost each time I pass it I rearrange the colors and sometimes take on out and put another in. This process takes about a month. When the arrangement has “jelled” I start to measure out the warp (the threads that run front to back on the loom). Measuring out the warp takes at least two days. There are about a hundred threads across the loom and those are crossed at the same density. The pieces are made of cotton sewing thread, the same stuff you use to sew in a button. There are two layers of cloth everywhere. The color in the warp on the lower layer can’t be seen from the front of the piece but I can bring it to the surface later on in the weaving. It takes throwing two shuttles across to get one thread ahead. If I put a color in the warp that I want to hide until the right moment, I can cross it with a color that almost neutralizes it. Nothing happens fast! --Sharon Alderman

Creator:

Sharon Alderman (1941, American)

Creation Year:

2011

Dimensions:

Height: 11.5 in (29.21 cm)Width: 17 in (43.18 cm)

Medium:

Cotton,Gold Leaf

Movement & Style:

Abstract Geometric

Period:

2010-