I have started a tapestry whose subject is dementia. This one is dear to me. My mother died four years ago from dementia. i am using a photo of my mother from when she was still able to speak. One of the first things that happened to her was that she got aphasia and was unable to remember certain words. Then it progressed over the next six year to the point that she couldn’t speak at all. My mother was a wonderful listener and talker. She LOVED to talk to people especially friends and family. When we talked on the phone, my dad would say hello and then he’d say okay you do what you do.
I am beginning the process with a large value study in grey tones. I haven’t ever woven a face in full color and I was nervous about doing this. Switching to monotone, grey scale made it much simpler for me. There are some fantastic tools out there to work with photos and the one I used is Notanizer. I was able to do my mothers photo in 5 different values of grey. The result is a tapestry that looks like my mother but wasn’t difficult to weave.
Next I had to introduce something that symbolizes dementia. This step is difficult, how will viewers understand what I’m trying to express? I’m trying a linear version of deleting parts of the photograph and blending them into the background for this study. I’ve also toyed with removing chunks of photograph and leaving the background. There are definitely more versions in my future that will be done in color.
