Maggie Tomberlin, Tacoma Weavers Guild, Tacoma, WA
Materials & Technique: Rya, self-drafted pattern. Warp and weft fiber is tea-dyed Ashford 5/2 unmercerized cotton. Rya weft is a mix of commercial cotton embroidery floss, silk, baby alpaca, cotton rug warp, synthetic mohair, handspun merino and bluefaced leicester yarns. Loom used was a 43″ Leclerc Artisat 4-shaft jack loom.
Description: My work explores human interactions with the environment and how we document these spaces through photography and maps. Each piece captures a specific moment in time. This piece is a woven re-creation of a Google Earth Pro satellite image of Cinebar, WA. When viewed from space, the checkerboard pattern of logged vs. unlogged areas becomes apparent. The vast impact of human activity and the disruption of habitat cannot be hidden at this scale. The shifting values depict the play of light over the topography of the land, while the long vs. short rya wefts depict the variation in vegetation between forest and clearcut.
