Yesterday
Laurie Herrick’s archives contain clippings, files, samples, notes and more – but few written details about how the various elements led her from point a to point b in her work. By creating inspiration boards using the archive materials, Curatorial Assistant Lauren Raburn constructed a visual map of cultural influences, created entirely from various pieces Herrick saved in her personal files. Inspiration boards are tools used by designers in various stages of a project as a way to organize ideas, images and information. Selected pieces that made up the collage, or inspiration board are included in this section to show how an archive can be used to reconstruct history.
Today
Laurie’s Herrick’s archives include many of her lectures, workshop notes, and projects developed to help her students work through particular weaving techniques. Herrick presented a workshop on “Summer and Winter Weaving” on several occassions; her archives contain the slide presentation and notes from April, 1989.
Download Herrick’s workshop handouts from the lecture (PDF).
Tomorrow
Laurie Herrick’s archives include notes and drafts for the creation of Summer and Winter Shawl (Collection of Ann and Jon Sinclair). The notes, however, were written for Herrick’s personal use, and not formatted as one might find in a weaving magazine or book today. Through careful observation and analysis of the weaving, Curatorial Intern Kristin Pesola used PixeLoom software to translate Herrick’s drafts accessible formats. In addition to a PDF with notes and images of the profile, threading, treadling and tie-up drafts, a zip file for those with access to weaving software that supports the WIF format is available below. The drafts are available for anyone to download, personalize, and to then share their interpretations or variations of Herrick’s work on the Laurie Herrick Flickr Group.
Download the Summer and Winter Shawl Weaving Draft (PDF).
Download a zip file of Summer and Winter Shawl; compatible with weaving software that supports the WIF format.
Upload an image of your work based on Herrick’s profile draft to the Laurie Herrick Flickr Group.
Summer and Winter Straight
A traditional early American weave structure, Summer and Winter, was used for Colonial-era coverlets; a technique where a darker color dominates one side, and a lighter color on the other. In her workshop notes from April 21–23, 1989, Herrick describes this weave structure as a “beautifully logical, disciplined weave yet one which offers countless opportunities for originality. Some weavers feel it lacks the grace of overshot because the units are geometric in form. BUT this characteristic yields firm, well integrated, durable fabric which to me excels an overshot piece with its long weft floats (Besides I like the orderliness of geometric figures).”
The shawl is one of several wearables or functional objects that Herrick taught her students to weave. It is also a variation on the “Op” Art designs Herrick developed from the 1960s until her death in 1995. Herrick often wove multiple shawls on the same warp, using different weft threads to provide color variations.
Herrick Special Features ...
• Op Art
• Inlay
• Open Warp
• Laurie Coat
• Summer and Winter on Opposites
• Summer and Winter Straight
• Summer and Winter Polychrome
Return to the Laurie Herrick exhibition page to download writings, exhibition checklist and research documents.
