My Tapestries

I started working these tapestries at the end of 1957 - at a time when I was searching for a medium of expression which for me would combine the feminine and the masculine, the hand and the heart and the mind. Until 1957 I had painted seriously for about five years, having studied informally with an ex-pupil from the Slade School of Art; and in February 1958 I held my first exhibition of paintings in Bulawayo. This was successfully received both locally and written up in Capricornio by Doctor Macederos of Portugal. I also had an oil painting chosen for exhibition at the Imperial Institute of London in 1957 and have had paintings and tapestries selected for every annual exhibition since 1958 at the Rhodes National Gallery in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia. Since 1958 I have painted little, but have worked continuously each and every day with this new medium. Two of my tapestries, ‘The Two Heads‘ and ‘Tenements in the Sunset‘ are owned by the Rhodes National Gallery in Harare.

I have often been asked what made me begin doing this work I call tapestry. Tapestry meaning a fabric fully strong, not transparent and, as Lurcat calls it, a true hide. I do not use a loom to weave but merely a needle which is my brush and with which I paint and weave with freedom over a plain canvas. I never draw out a cartoon - sketches are inches small, suddenly drawn out, perhaps while waiting in a car or just sitting on my Rhodesian verandah. All I have to begin with on my canvas are a few base pencil outlines, but the actual work, although created as I go along, I have thought about for a long time before finally working on the canvas. I work the canvas on a long, wide piece of board which I lie flat, either on a table or on the floor and from time to time place erect.

But to return to the question ‘what made me commence doing this work?’ My answer is threefold.

Firstly, I began to search for a more disciplined form of expression. I wanted to find a form of expression which by discipline would give me a greater command of it - a form of expression as I said, that would involve hand, heart and mind completely as it were - the basic thing of life with its root in the earth, but which grows upwards slowly to bring understanding. At that time I could not find it through painting as then there were trends developing with which I could not identify.

Secondly, I had always enjoyed the warmth and glow of wools, not only because of colour value, but also because of texture - the very feel of it - and to me wools were more alive, the more so as they had been given life from the body of living animals.

Thirdly (and this is important to me as an artist), I felt the time had come to do tapestry with wool and thread more in the spirit of our day - to liberate us from the tight, graded, unexacting flowers of the insular Victorian days and to use these glowing wools on a canvas in a manner expressive of our age - with all its vitality and liberation that it has given to the Arts, yet with a discipline. It was literally fighting the Puritanism which has stifled creative art in this direction in England.

So now came the problem of technique: to discover a new technique as it were and later, when I had command of it, to learn, as in all the Arts, what to express and what not to express, not to overstate, not to understate, and to do all this sensitive to the world around me. Living in Rhodesia, in Central Africa, this did not only mean a black and white society; the world around me was the very earth, the rocks, the trees, the colour in life so strongly alive in Africa.

My work is divided into three stages, showing a definite growth and development in technique and content. My first experiments were more decorative and I worked in flat areas of single colours - there were no tones or half tones. I prepared my canvas with the same colours underneath as I was to do above, as I could not at first anticipate what different colours on top of each other would result in. This is obvious in my ‘African Dancers‘. Later I decided to break up the flat areas of colour into tones of the same colour and later I began to break up colour completely into small harmonious areas of colour. I started to “paint“ (almost like doing your large areas of colour in light and dark areas in painting) with different colours to those I used on top - as in ‘The Machine Man’. I wanted these colours to glow through and in tramming (wide stitches laid first across the canvas), I broke up my areas into light and dark with a focal point from which I worked. I worked in small areas of colour, each of which I treated as a harmonious unit, each shaded with light and dark, each related to each other and forming part of a larger area in a unified whole: all smaller parts became inter-dependent now. Each stitch and how it turned or lay was important to me and the thread as part of a line - or an actual line was important - for why should we not use a long thread to represent a line “as the pencil takes a walk” in a drawing or a sketch? The importance of the stitch, played freely, and its part as a whole in texture cannot be underestimated. I saw it all in the world of nature around me - in the stones, the shells, the veining of the rocks of the Matopos forever changing colour as the sun rises and sets; in the bark of trees - twisted in Africa, struggling in the dry bush looking very bare and stark, then blooming when the rains come - and raging with time. Here was the essential substance of creative thought, the interaction of objective and subjective elements. I have portrayed this most clearly, I believe, in ‘Rock Formations’ in which I basically put down in colour and texture all I had discovered in my own bundu (the bush) world – a world of exciting rhythms. Doing one’s work this way is not cosy relaxation, nor is the end result mere decoration.

The subjects of my work came from a variety of stimuli and to begin from the beginning, I started with ‘African Dancers’ and became stimulated by a variety of subjects. Inspiration also came from my own imaginative life:  my experiences as an art teacher, my closeness to the organic life of the bundu, of Nature, this world of the Space Age and of science. Perhaps it is appropriate to add here that before becoming seriously interested and involved in art, I studied at the Department of African Studies at Cape Town University where I received an MA degree in Social Anthropology.

After ‘African Dancers’, a decorative piece of work in earthy colours, I did ‘The Machine Man’, my first serious piece of work. It depicts man today as a robot, going in a forward direction, living in hope with hands raised up but essentially a machine, a product of our life, our scientific age, a cog in a wheel, portrayed in colours of blue, mauve, black and white - religious colours in which lies man’s hope through the spirit of creation.

This was followed by ‘The Balloon Man’, something quite different - humorously portrayed - aroused through my fascination with the egocentricity of the five-year old child who is twice the size of her big sister. I have broken the background here into areas of shades of the same colour - the surface is flat as in ‘The Machine Man’ and as in the next tapestry, ‘The Three Birds’.

‘The Three Birds’ are doing what an African once described to me as “contemplating their food”. Colours are soft olive greens, pinks, ochre and touches of red. Apart from “contemplating their food”, they stand in “full throated ease”.

This was followed by ‘The Rooster’ - symbolic of the resurrection, he crows in the morning for all to arise. He is gay and sometimes too proud. I was advised to do this rooster by Madame Jarry of Paris. She brought out the magnificent French tapestries of Lurcat, Picart le Doux, Manessier etc to the Rhodesias. She came to my home and on seeing my monotype of ‘The Rooster’, suggested I do it as a  tapestry and concentrate on texture. This I did and it set me forth experimenting with twisting various wools together, tufting threads and cutting. When this was complete, I decided I wanted to obtain a textural effect more by breaking up colour, and proceeded with ‘African Cave’ - African objects such as the pipe smoked for leisure and pleasure, the fertility from the marriage clappers etc are portrayed and symbolically enclosed in a rocklike shape. In this tapestry the break-up of colour in small areas as in ‘The Three Birds’ has begun and is seen more clearly.

‘The African Cave’ was followed by the ‘Enchanted Cat’ and a still life ‘Calabashes and a Vase’, a contemplation of everyday objects - colour has been broken up very freely here.

I then entered into a final stage of breaking up colour freely and using long threads for lines in a tapestry ‘Abstract’. In this work I felt a greater maturation of my work and a simplification again of technique - areas of bare canvas were left to give depth and less colour used. The work is owned by a firm in Salisbury [Harare].

‘Abstract’ was followed by ‘The Rising Sun’ and ‘Crowing Cock’, a larger work with a religious inspiration. Here a silk thread has been introduced and the general effect is reminiscent of a stained glass window because of the textural break-up of colour.

‘The Fish’ again introduced a silk thread and depicts the simple life.

Then came ‘African Twilight’ as seen in the Rhodesian Matopos, which is full of African colours: the twisted tree of the bundu, the winged sun. This was followed by ‘The Two Heads’ now owned by the Rhodes National Gallery. I did it in March 1962 at a time when political things were taking a gloomy turn in the Federation. Here are depicted two heads seen by an ordinary human being - the one at the top is the African, the one below the European. The weaknesses of both are shown: the anger and importance of the upper head, the hesitancy and “not knowing what to do” of the lower head. A line passes through both ends to show the men belong to each other.

‘Tenements in the Sunset’ is a more tranquil work owned by the Rhodes National Gallery. It is freely worked as an abstract, but a third dimensional effect to create forms is seen.

‘Into Orbit’ was worked in June 1962 followed by ‘Rock Formations’ and ‘Celestial Landscape’, then ‘Rain on a Window’.

After my exhibition in Cape Town in September 1962, which was viewed with much interest, I decided to compromise with flat areas and perhaps over-textured areas and have created the following tapestries:

‘Bundu Tree’
‘Sunlight on Stone’
‘In the Sun’ - children playing with a ball which is the sun.
‘Of the Sun’ - cosmic energy.
‘Mother and Children’
‘Houses at Dawn’ - an African township
‘Tuned to a Minor Key’ - like a figure.
‘The Temples’
‘The Image’ (from Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream).
‘Mask’ - the African masks showing their fears and wishes for survival in driving away or appeasing the ancestral spirits.
‘Young Nude’

I arrived in this country, England, in May 1964 and have worked on

‘African Still Life’ - here is the Bethonga smoking pipe of a gourd - ‘The African Piano’ - ‘The Wild Orange’.
‘Two Children’ and ‘Guardian Angel’
‘Still Life in England’ in the spring.

My mind is still full of the imagery of Africa and I am now preparing ‘Song of Africa’.

My canvasses hitherto have not been large for a tapestry canvas, for I felt there is the need for tapestries to go into the home - not just for large public buildings. ‘Song of Africa’ is my first large canvas.

©Miriam Sacks May 1965

The Still Point

The tapestry 'Still Point' was woven in 1968 at the same time as tapestries 'Movement in Space' and 'Light Intersecting'. They were all part of a series I called cosmic rhythms and have a spatial quality.

Rhythm has this curve in it, like a spiral - a circle or an elipse - it gives off an energy unlike the man-made straight line which can only suggest the mechanical.

The 'Still Point' is an image from TS Eliot’s Four Quartets which my elder daughter, Janet, asked me to weave into a tapestry. Eliot was writing of time and the timeless moment when he said:

‘I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.’

He equates it with the spiritual ecstasy of a dance - ‘a white light still and moving’ - when remote and opposite feelings are reconciled in the fusion of the still point, a deeply, interiorized experience.

In my tapestry I use opposite textures and create shadows to give a depth. You cannot do this with paint because threads have both light reflection and absorption, depending on the choice of threads. In all my abstract tapestries I tried to interweave textures of the tangible and intangible, and in this ‘Still Point’ tapestry, I use circles and elipses on the diagonal to give movement and, above all, the still point is a sphere, not just a circle. I wove it completely intuitively and only afterwards did I realise what I had done. That is why my tapestry threads often stick out of the canvas, looking a bit untidy but organic in texture.

Technique

Technique involves an 'inner eye' which must reflect as in a mirror. The inward eye is not only the seeing eye, it also knows, for it links onto the mind that analyses and synthesizes. The effectual operation of inspiration is largely dependent upon the existence of technique.

The ability to isolate imagery, to interweave and shape what is perceived outwardly with what is perceived inwardly, is a technical skill. What matters ultimately in evolving technical ability, is a 'way of seeing' related to the sharpening of perceptions and changing the positions within the mind. It involves a direct contact with the core.

I use no cartoons or sketches from which to work. The creative impulse interwoven with 'seeing' is already creating the tapestry in my mind's eye before it is worked. On very rare occasions, I have made a sketch but not to follow as I work, rather to give guidelines on the canvas.

Images are perceived in structured sequences of patterns of colours and shapes, of textures in layers of threads, in which technique varies with content. The integration of imagery is something I see as a piece of orchestration and in much of my work in the sixties, tapestries interwove with thoughts and feelings of music, especially in form and structure.

Structure is the solid foundations on which one builds. It is the skeleton beneath surface patterns, giving a solidity; it is the actual stuff of which the work is made, as the imagery forms a shape.

The world is made up of patterns, of shapes of relationships. There are surface patterns and patterns beneath the surface forming the structure. If we look at a face we can be moved by the external beauty. But to look beneath the surface, however, at the shapes of a spiritual skull moulded by the power of the mind is to see the interrelatedness of the brow, cheek bones and hollow eyes, at a deeper level of beauty that gives structure.

To grasp the totality of parts, their relationships as an interconnected whole, reflects a sense of structure. Emphasis is on how things are put together in a rhythmic order in which all parts are illuminated by the total arrangement. It can be organized through colour, space, rhythm, line and texture in a work of art. It gives a sense of unity, balance and cohesion; it is both logical and architectural.

Often within a painting of a harmonious whole, smaller parts form small harmonious structures. The Chinese organized their paintings with a sense of this structure. A rock in the foreground organized as a smaller structure related to distant hills of rocks or mountains. A tree could be shown in part in the foreground to relate to a distant forest. So each part of smaller structures merged into the whole structure on a larger scale demonstrating the interrelationship between parts.

Form can be more of the surface. I have worked the form of owls in this way, outlining their feathers to emphasize this outward form. This is not so much to do with the ordering of parts but more a defining of overall shape of line, surface and of volume.

My tool is my needle, held in my right hand as my left hand holds the canvas and helps manipulate the threads. An old and simple instrument made by early man of bone, my needle is made of steel.

I find in the needle a sentient quality; it is sharp and sensitive. It connects threads of inner and outer space and links layers of threads to levels of experience and consciousness. It transforms.

It can be used sensitively, as is the needle on the grooves of a record as it picks up sound, or as the needle of a compass as it picks up direction. Held between the fingertips, the needle feels the materials. Moving to certain textural points is like striking a keyboard with a certain weight behind the fingers, giving a· required touch in the handling of materials, as I strike the archetypal chords within.

The flexibility of the canvas and the pliability of the threads allows for easy handling for it can be cut, moulded or shaped. I approach the canvas as a painter does his or her canvas. In viewing my work, it should be seen as a whole image and not the examination of stitches. Various distances away from the canvas, various angles, give different perspectives.

As I work, I have within me, subconsciously, an analogy of texture and colours relating to the cosmos. The word cosmic implies that which embraces all mankind. It is not just something out there yonder; it, also, is here for it speaks through the spirit of man.

The materials I use, form the substance of my universe on the canvas. Threads have a physical quality, as of matter. For me, stitches, with their own energies are like ‘atoms' forming part of a whole; but just as atoms are not visible to the human eye, so stitches must be unnoticeable but there, like part of the substance of the milky way, part of texture, part of tone like stardust.

The creative role of the stitch lies in its unstitchlike quality becoming part of a textural whole interweaving with harmonious areas of colour. It is unstitchlike in terms of old conventions, when the thread was worked tightly at a diagonal into every hole in the canvas. In more abstract work, it gained importance as in a heightened area of colour, where it added a specific tonal and textural quality. The canvas is spaced with moments of pause; it brings relief to a monotonous flat area but must not be overtextured. Textures can be coarse or fine, rough or smooth, natural or artificial, dense or thin, emitting feelings that are cold or warm. For texture is not just a tactile physical quality, but relates to inward as well as outward qualities. It appeals directly to the sense of touch but goes deeper to the spirit and in this way adds an expressiveness of its own to the whole.

It has been said that tapestries are like dreams that hang on the wall. I am half inclined to agree with this, because half my world is that of dreams in the unconscious and this weaves with the other half, the conscious which is the real world in which I live and partake. The mind consists therefore of various levels, moving deep down to the collective unconscious where lie the archetypes of time and space.

And furthermore, I use metaphor and symbols which is the language of this subconscious hidden world, bound to the essentials of nature. Here lie our dreams not only of ourselves but of our ancestors. To create metaphor is to constantly extend oneself to this great primordial source, to discover new rhythms and see new patterns in the old. Our sense of form, of order, and relationships, springs from this source to give a sense of continuity. It weaves onto the beginnings, for archetypes are of a primordial source where we feel movements and rhythms as in a spring or a shell. Enacting these feelings brings one to life.

The great storehouse of archetypes is about shells and stones, about water and earth, about trees and birds, flowers and fish, man and stars as well as other universal thoughts. They abound in all cultures, throughout time and space. They are as old as the hills and require a new look, a freshness of approach, for unless old thoughts are woven onto contemporary ones, they remain banalities and cliches. Change brings new shapes, as imagination reassembles what has broken down.

It took me five years to work out a basic technique, as I passed through various stages of experimentation. These years produced a knowledge which enabled me to work with greater ease and flow as images became more complex. Awareness of threads involved knowing not only their inherent qualities, but also which kind of thread absorbed light and which gave the illusion of throwing off the light as well as the relationship of these qualities to each other. The quality of the thread had to be balanced with the colour. It was not the quantity of threads that was important, but the quality and subtle distribution of densities of layers of threads.

In the beginning, I worked in a simple way. The process of working stitch by stitch was tedious and monotonous; it did, however teach me a certain patience which I no doubt lacked. As no one had worked in this way previously, I could only call on my own resources, my own daring to take new leaps aesthetically. A few pencil lines on the canvas were necessary as guidelines, as I translated images directly onto the canvas. Relying on a sort of guided spontaneity, there was no place for the accident or mistake as in painting. Because the image and structure was held strongly in my mind’s eye, I could work this way. The challenge of working without a cartoon or design, created new energies which grew through exploring unknown territory. It sustained a sense of anticipation, and I could only remain hopeful providing the journeying was not too difficult.

For many years, I worked on the floor surrounded by heaps of coloured wools, randomly placed in baskets of varying shapes and sizes. They formed a colourful palette around me. Unhampered by a loom, my hand moved freely over the canvas in all directions. Technical liberation grew only after passing from one stage to another, in a 'stitch by stitch' and 'row by row' process, in all directions to abstract imagery. Bending over my work, as I sat on the floor, had a disastrous effect on the bones of my neck. It did, however, have the advantage of giving a different view of my work, especially as I stood up and looked down on it or walked around and away from it, looking from different angles. I constantly took small breaks from the work, so that I could see things afresh. It enabled me to assess what was relevant in the old as I wove onto the new.

In the first stage, I worked tightly in smooth flat areas of few colours. The background worked in a neutral colour, was in tones of the same shade. Areas of colour, in varying tones did not overlap: space was flat and there was little nuance of colour except in a few tones. Taking up needle, threads and canvas, I could not but help remembering the tightly graded flowers of chair covers I ·had worked; now I was creating a picture for the wall and this would involve a different approach. My rebellion against established conventions involved breaking down old structures to be replaced by the building up of a new set of conventions forming· a new structure, a new vocabulary. I was up against pet prejudices and preconceived ideas. The unfamiliar can be terrifyingly uncomfortable.

My weave remained close and tight for the first years. I wanted to discover the relationship of not only one stitch to the other and each thread to the other, but also the relationship of colours of the same tone. I remembered Paul Klee's painting ‘Ad Parnassum' in which he tried to understand the relationship of a point of colour to another in a crop of dots and painted tiny rectangles to create light filled space.

I aimed further to discover what effect one colour overlaid upon another colour would have. A debt must be acknowledged too to my "chair cover days", when in the spirit of canvas work, I 'trammed' the canvas with threads of the same colour. Now I used different colours as I overlaid purples and mauves with blues in "Robot Man." Although, initially, to a certain degree, I worked in a similar mechanical way in the manipulation of the threads, my imagery was different; The stuff and substance of experiences that formed new textures, were dancing Bushmanlike figures as in "African Dancers," "Balloon Man” of children's play and "Robot Man”, my memory of New York.

My use of line, at first formed boundaries to enclose areas of colours; later line broke these up. A method of using a single split thread to form minute stitches as points in a line, gave it energy. Later, threads because of their inherent qualities of flexibility, were easily manipulated in several lines of single threads for outlines.

Becoming more adventurous, experimentation with textures, led to greater understanding of the creation of its tactile qualities through looping and tufting, as threads were simultaneously twisted into the shapes of feathers of a rooster. Even stitching was interspersed with more aggressive textures as in ‘Three Birds!’ I gained other textural effect through the splitting of wools and break-up of colour into small sections. The possibilities and potential of threads became endless, as I began to handle the materials with greater ease and understanding. My canvases were no longer two feet by two feet and grew by inches as I added borders. Stitches became less stitchlike and more part of texture and tone. The old was merging with the new as more and more layers of threads filled the canvas to form a modulating surface. This was the result of two years work.

The break up of colour to create larger areas of texture, marks a second stage in the evolution of technique. Crewel wools used with opposite textures of thicker wools, interwove in tapestries of ‘Calabashes’ and ‘African Cave’. In 1960, silk, as a new thread was introducedin a tapestry of the sea with a fish. Subject matter took in landscapes of the ‘Matopos’ on earth and ‘celestial landscapes’ of the heavens, as vision expanded and the texture of the cosmos began to grow. I had moved from the flat, more decorative works of the second dimension to the third dimension where I used space positively rather than decoratively and all points linked up to form a meaningful whole. Boundaries fell away as I projected my thoughts cosmically, as well as into earth landscapes and everyday life.

As the decade of the fifties turned into the decade of the sixties, I reached another stage of development. Becoming more fluent with the medium, I developed a greater awareness and began moving into more abstract imagery as in ‘Rock Formations’. Paradoxically, tapestries appeared more formless, as small areas of the canvas were left free to create a physical dimension of depth. A free-flowing technique of surface textures was sustained by an awareness of structure as in ‘Tenements in the Sunset’, Modulations of the surface increased with spaces showing the linen warp of threads.

Using the aesthetics of a painter, my work grew from a focal point, in a rhythmic movement of inbalance to balance, as I organized layers of threads into massed areas of light and shade. Somehow the focal point from which ‘growing’ began, was always in the same place. When it did move and change, the structure of light and shade changed and the ‘atoms’ forming the pattern found another cohesion.

Layers of threads were used in varying densities, some parts of the canvas having thinner layers than others. Massed areas of colours were not rigid with straight outlines, but were amorphous in shape with irregular edges as with a splash of paint. Colours were placed on a canvas as a painter places paint with a brush. I did not measure or calculate, for it was an intuitive act. At the same time, it was not haphazard for it related to a sense of proportion and balance.

Rhythm and balance, led me from one massed area of colour to another, as I worked at an angle on my canvas. Aware of tensions and relationships within the whole, I moved from asymmetry to symmetry, intertwining regularity with irregularity to round off harmonies as in a fugue. Layers on the surface related to layers underneath in colours and textures. Threads, used in large sweeps horizontically, gave a sense of technical liberation. Loops of small stitches caught up layers of threads, as I organized colours and textures spatially, crossing and criss-crossing boundaries of areas of colour.

Command of this technique, could only be achieved after the initial years of slow, disciplined work of trial and error, where a laborious process was replaced by flow and self-renewal. For awareness of the third dimension was also linked with a deepening of consciousness with planes of space and planes of light.

With the movement of time, we have moved into new spaces. We organize space by projecting on it our view of the world. This changed with major scientific discoveries such as in the time of Copernicus and Galileo, when they dared to say that the earth revolved with other planets around the sun. It changed again in the 20th century with the splitting of the atom revealing space and time.

Early man as a hunter-gather leading a nomadic life, conceived space as a journey, linearly. His perceptions were governed by the difficulties not the distances, he met on the way, as he moved in search of food.

The farmer, who led a sedentary existence, conceived space as radiating, his granary and his temple were surrounded by concentric circles.

An artist may see a shell; or see the unfolding of circles as in a pool when a stone falling into the water creates widening circles from a centre.

It is easy to see that colours and sound belong to the same keyboard and that colours might be composed· like sounds interweaving the visual with the aural sensibilities as in music. This is only to suggest, not to form a score, but to organize melodic shapes. Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven and other composers cannot be replaced by the artists' palette; certainly not. The music can only be hinted at through metaphor and underlying principles stressed. So when I create a musical tapestry, I am only suggesting through the interweaving of colours, textures and form, hoping to add dimension to experience as it does for me.

Inspired by Bach's intellectual containment and elegance and with an ear and eye on structure, I worked 'Prelude' and 'Fugue'. Working with an intuitive calculation, I tried to organize musical notes into colours of varying tones and sizes, in squares representing notes. Groups of notes formed melodic shapes representing a subject. The notes were taken from a palette of colours of tones and half-tones, so the palette was like a  keyboard. It was a purely artistic affair and I certainly have not worked out a score. Merely by organizing my work this way, I felt I was creating a feeling of musical form especially as various subjects in different colours interwove and moved upwards as in a fugue (meaning flight).

So what I was trying to do was to use the plastic value of colour as a concrete material and also to create musical form through a certain integrated structure of organized coloured squares of varying sizes. For example, a quaver which is half the value of a crotchet, two quavers equalling a crotchet, can similarly be half the size of a square representing a crotchet. Continuing the process, the semi-quaver will be a quarter of the size of the square representing the crotchet. So the length of the note correlated to the size of the square; the tone quality to the strength of colour and the colour itself indicated mood.

The concepts of time, rhythm, metre and interval as well as phrasing and dynamics, can be introduced into the aesthetics of painting in an analogous way. A melodic shape of squares of varying sizes can follow a movement on the canvas that goes up to a peak and down again thus representing a crescendo and decrescendo; a curving line can suggest a phrase; strength of tone and hue of colour in various gradations, can suggest loudness and softness related to dynamics.

Tonality comes through the various textures. I organize textures as in music with moments of pause and silence, leaving the canvas free of textures. Music moves in a visible way for there is physical vibration forming sounds and the silence to complete the form. Tapestry is 'still' on the wall and can only suggest movement and silence in the mind if the structure suggests this through an organization of colours and textures spatially; through the curve of line in melody, through silences of ‘non-texture’, through shapes of 'notes' and other aesthetic properties like rhythm, symmetry and balance. All this with harmony and counterpoint, can only suggest underlying principles.

When listening to music, I have found a mood may be intensified by colours. For me, Bruckner and Mozart are often associated with deep blues, greens and pinks with Chopin and red with Scriabin's vibrating energy. Pyschological associations of sadness come through muted blues; softness and love weaves with pinks, and greens with growth. Listening to Bach's 'Little Prelude' in C major, I have seen a tree unfold; the structure of patterns in melodic shapes repeating themselves, unfolded in my mind, branches and smaller branches. The structure had within it organic shapes relating to principles of growth in Creation.

I have said that I want my tapestries to be like chamber music, warm and intimate brought down in scale and size from the grand the epic, to be enjoyed like a conversation amongst friends.

The polyphonic textures of the ‘Still Point’, ‘Movement in Space’ and other abstract work towards the end of the sixties, gave way to new techniques and an awareness of Africa, as I refound my roots in 1970. I moved from deeply interiorized experiences and explorations of space in blues and silver, influenced by man's orbiting to the moon, to more extraverted earthy influences in Africa. The yin-yan flow of balanced positive and negative deviations from uniformity, interwove with new outward forms essentially African.

It was in Rhodesia, where I lived for fourteen years that I felt near the source of Creation - the primordial primitivities of long ago. I experienced there a deep darkness in contrast to strong vibrant light; this quality of light differed from the gentler light I had known in childhood and in youth. Although I link both places in a general sweep as Southern Africa, they are very different in light, landscape, people and cultures.

The form and power of the mask inspired me to work in semi-sculptural form. I began to experiment in bulging forms of faces in earthy colours building one layer of canvas onto another. By this method, I placed a cut-out piece of smaller canvas in the shape of a face, on a larger underlying canvas and having sewn these pieces together, I filled and moulded the shape of a face. At first, I worked in small shapes. Later (1972) my tapestry “Ancient and Modern Faces” grew out of several layers of linen canvas into a structure 5 ft high, 3 ft wide and 1 foot deep.

The technique involved using several more layers of canvas, slitting the canvas to form holes and building up the canvas through padding with foam. The first layer formed the basis, onto which was stitched a second layer smaller in size. My threads from the second layer blended into the first. Both canvases were oval in shape. The third layer much smaller in size, but in proportion to the other layers, was square in shape. I had slit the canvas of the second layer to create hollows for eyes and a mouth, and filled in the rest of the canvas to create undulations of hollows and lumps as in sculpture. The third layer, square in shape, had small squares hollowed out of the canvas, now well padded, to form eyes, across which I placed strands of mohair like blinds. The tapestry literally grew with layers of canvas and layers of thread and I emphasized this organic quality of the physical outward form through the use of wilder textures. Loops of thick natural camel hair decorated the outer oval circumference. The tweeds and mohairs were juxtapositioned with crewel wools, which were contrastingly finer and thinner. The coarse and fine threads interwove, although the fine wools were sparingly used. The square small third layer which jutted out, was edged with raw fleece and I used icelandic sheeps wool to create a knobliness.

This tapestry with a more visible technique is more obvious and easy to analyse technically; it is like a building which can be seen in its dimension of mass and space. In contrast, what is felt and thought inwardly, as in 'Still Point', can only be suggested through metaphor and symbol and the organization of space and colour contrapuntally.

 At the same time, I experimented in shaping a three-dimensional hanging form, in which I used similar aggressive textures with colours of greys, blacks and browns with dashes of light browns and orange. The shape, suggestive of a bat was made by cutting out two pieces of canvas identical in size and shape and stitching them together. The rigidity of the material was reinforced inside by two slats of wood across the expanse of wings to create firmness. Both sides of the structure were woven with juxtapositioned threads both coarse and fine. They were covered in similar colours, but colours were dissimilarly dispersed each side of the form.

As the hanging turned, the colours of each side flowed into each other. A mohair fringe several inches long, decorated the sides of the bat shape and colours were gently graded and interspersed with icelandic sheeps wool. Two brass hooks covered with threads suggested eyes and the form was hung from the ceiling.

As I went too and fro from London to Cape Town and back again, these feelings of the 'beginnings' grew in contrast to images of machine men, Feelings of 'beginnings' led me to work a cradle-shaped canvas in a tapestry of blues and greens, mixing mohairs with crewel wools. It was called "Birth". Two figures, male and female were slightly padded and interwoven with rock forms. This was followed by "Youth" in Feb. 1973 in a larger canvas, the shape of an inverted arch in which a male and female form were fused together in rock. The map of Africa formed unconsciously between the two figures against a golden background. Light, inward of silvers and blue in the North, became light outwardly with the gold of Africa at the southern tip. A bridge with my roots was formed.

While working on flat surfaces, weaving together thoughts and feelings about flowers and growth during the seventies in London, I became inspired by semi-sculptural form each time I returned to South Africa. The form, however, was on this occasion not that of the African mask, but that of a basket made by the weavers of the Transkei in Southern Africa. Its bulging shape suggested the cup of a shell which interwove with the basket form to evolve into a cradle to hold a child. Feelings and textures were contrastingly gentler and finer than in previous semi-sculptural work and there was an organic feel in its womblike quality. Threads were thinner and I used many silk cottons. Only on the first layer, where there was a suggestion of earth at the bottom of the canvas, did I use earth colours and coarser mohair textures. Crewel wools were juxta-positioned with silks.

The shapes suggested in the batform, inspired by thoughts and feelings of caves in Rhodesia, were replaced by curving lines of growth as in a shell, suggesting spaces created by a moving swing. A circular shape formed the basis of the first layer of canvas. Onto this was sewn a smaller basket shape, slit to contain a child, carved as in dark wood and looking at the light. This is my 'Child in the Moses basket' looking up at  rainbow colours and full of hope. At my exhibition at the Library of the University of Cape Town in 1978, it formed with the 'Burning Bush', the central theme. In 1979 it became the central theme with writings on evolution, growth and development at the exhibition at the University of the Western Cape. On this occasion, however, the 'Burning Bush' was replaced by 'the tree of life' which is in my mind, a development of the 'Burning Bush'; it is an evolving of myself into another plane of consciousness as I come into balance with the tree centrally placed. It was in Rhodesia in the bush that I saw the prickly pear with its thorns become 'a burning bush' etched against the flaming orange sun. Thoughts of 'justice and righteous' flashed cross my mind in the symbol of the 'burning bush'. Since then, I have worked several variations on this theme -in different techniques and weaves – some loosely woven, some closer woven in different moods.

Royal Festival Hall

Notes for an exhibition for concert goers (18th Jan-10th Feb 1971)

Here are some of my ideas relating to the exhibition of drawings by Hilde Wiener together with my tapestries.

I want in a way to be anonymous. This is an exhibition of drawings of musicians linked with tapestries. The audience is very important.

I want people who love music, who are concert-goers, to enjoy these tapestries linking up sounds and colours like a keyboard, to interrelate the material with the spatial as in ‘Ezekiel’s Vision’, which follows the circle in time. The tapestries are like windows which take you into space and on a journey. 

For this reason, I do not use aggressive textures, which is the general path of tapestry today, where artists confront their audience in a desire to blow up the thread. I take another path and want to beckon gently so that the audience can feel a blending of colour with texture and concept. The texture of the intangible must interweave in harmony with the texture of the tangible and stitches must be cosmic-like, unnoticeable but there, like part of the milky way, giving texture, giving time.

To go into more detail of ideas concerning a keyboard of colour and sound:

I have for a long time felt an interweaving of the keyboards of colour and sound and have felt an orchestration of uneven parts in the use of this medium, interweaving threads. For me there is music in colour and sanctuary in threads. When I hear music, I see colours. When I see threads, they sing with a varying expressiveness. 

The idea of visual music (as I have attempted in ‘Prelude’ and ‘Fugue’) is not a new one but experimentation with it in this medium is new. For this particular method creates depth - the wool absorbing light and sound, unlike paint which reflects it. The luminosity works in a different way.

It is something that is difficult to formulate in words for there are no hard and fast rules. I work with intuitive calculation. I see chromaticism of colour linking tones and half tones in sound; I see melodic shapes of colour forming as a subject in a Bach fugue, ordered in complementary harmonies and chromatic passages which are contrasted and interwoven in a contrapunctal way. I see moments of pause in the use of texture on a canvas as silence in a musical composition - and, as I said - notes in a musical composition forming patterns, can interweave in the same contrapunctal structure as do colour patterns in a canvas. And, I can see an affinity in the undulations of line on a canvas with musical rhythms. Colour suggests mood and creates the same atmospheric imagery as major or minor keys in bold or soft shimmering light. So, for me, this link up of drawings of musicians with eight selected pieces all in electric blues, silvers and golds is a big event.

Tapestry Miniatures

I began to weave miniature tapestries in 1971 when I wove my first small tapestry, 10x12ins, ‘Roots’. This was after my first visit to Cape Town (South Africa), after not being allowed to travel as I had a Rhodesian passport. Thereafter, I travelled to South Africa every year and, sometimes, twice a year. In 1976, after I bought a flat in Bantry Bay, Cape Town, with a vista of the sea straight in front of me, I started to observe light falling on shells at different times of the day and in different seasons when I came to Cape Town, and I observed the changing light as the sun went down. All this I wove into miniatures just a few inches long and they became more and more abstract. I also took up my brush again and painted the sea and sky in front of me, especially observing the large dark brown and grey cloud of pollution.

Although small in size, they do unfold a whole universe of time and space in their own way - of textures and patterns of light, of doves roosting, eating and flying, of Jerusalem with old stones bathed in a gold and pink light and of strata in the landscape. I visited Jerusalem in 1977 and, after weaving small tapestries - miniatures - of the old buildings, I began to look closely at the architecture around me in Kensington where I live, getting a feel of continuity and history which I wove into miniatures and exhibited for the first time in 1977 (after my return from Israel) at Leighton House.

The Myth of the Superior Straight Line from Civilisation on Loan published 1973 in Oxford by H.E. Kiewe

Paul Klee said his pencil went for a walk when he drew. I have often pondered­ - the pencil taking a walk in a straight line has no adventures en route; the swing off the straight and narrow path lends more interest, it explores. And the curving line is a line with more energy: it is in tune with life and its constantly drifting sands, the movement behind life. Compared with the 'linear' line, the contour shows a struggle and is a symbol for life-giving forces as in the spiral and the circle....

Take the symbol of the Yin and Yang which comes from China, cradle of our civilisa­tion. The symbol of the Yin Yang is one of Creation. The Chinese view was not the cul­mination of all. In the East, man and nature coexisted in harmony. The universe could continue even if man was not there. In the West, man has placed himself above nature and wants to dominate it. The rhythms in undulation are not felt; the dynamics of nature are receding from the subconscious and the awareness of natural rhythms, as through the hand in crafts, is being lost as the machine takes over.

The legend of the universe, according to the Chinese, has it that in far-off times the universe was an enormous egg. The Yin Yang symbol of the ultimate unity is represented by a circle divided into two complementary tear drops: one light and one dark; one female, one male; one soft, one tough - all the opposites comprehensible to Western man. The legend says that one day the egg split open. Its upper half became the sky, its lower half the earth, and from it emerged Phan Ku, primordial man. Every day he grew ten feet taller, the sky ten feet higher, the earth ten feet thicker. After eighteen thousand years, Phan Ku died. His head split and became the sun and the moon, while his blood filled the rivers and seas. His hair became the forecasts and meadows, his perspiration the rain, his breath the wind, his voice the thunder.

For the Chinese, nature and man were very much interwoven. For they respected nature - their livelihood depended on knowing the seasons and attuning themselves to the will of heaven. Their economy was an agricultural one and the sense of communion with nature was not merely artistic or philosophical but of a highly practical value. Their highest ideal was adaptation and attunement, to discover an order in· things, to live harmoniously. This very sense of harmony is sensed in the ebb and flow of the curve of the Yin Yang symbol. On the higher plane this Chinese feeling of oneness, unique in itself, is given expression in their philosophy, poetry and painting as well as in their crafts as seen for example in the flowing figures of the Han dynasty: the curve in the neck of the jade Han horse (Victoria and Albert Museum), the pottery (from which we have much to learn) - all works of great art. Here an intuitive response to the awareness of natural rhythms and undulations is woven with a deep sense of harmony through nature. Where man has forgotten nature this sense of harmony and wholeness, of unity with the universe, is being replaced by imbalance on a one-dimensional plane. It is happening in the Western world. But for the Chinese the beauty and splendour of the universe - the mountains and valleys, waterfalls, clouds, flowers - is all seen in a curving flow of movement round grace, symbolic of the visible manifestations of the workings of Tao.

The circle is found in abundance in Tantric art, which comes from the Buddhist reli­gion. Here the symbolic content of the curve in the line through the cosmic spiral and the mandala is ever-present in woven pictures and paintings. The circle like infinity starts anywhere and is the basic geometrical pattern of organic life. It represents the sub­conscious, eternity, the sun. Jung will explain the symbol of the circle or sphere as a symbol of the sky, expressing wholeness and including man's relationship to the whole of nature; wholeness in relation to thought, feeling, intention and sensation as shown in the Buddhist symbol of the mandala - a circle within which is a square showing the four corners. The four or eight-rayed circle is the usual pattern in India and the Far East for images of meditation. Especially in Tibetan Lamaism, the mandala represents the cosmos in its relation to divine powers. A great many, like Yantras, are however purely geo­metrical in design. In the Zen seat the circle represents enlightenment, symbolising in this way human perfection. But abstract mandalas also appear in European art, as in the windows of cathedrals, the haloes of saints. In the instinctive architecture of primitive peoples - for example in Southern Africa - they devise a simple plan based on the circle. The huts, like the igloos of Eskimos, are circular. Medieval villages were founded on the ground plan of a mandala with a surrounding circular wall.

So it is clear that the line is an important plastic element at the disposal of the artist. The straight line is cool; the curving line shows an emotional quality and an 'energy change' with modulations. These modulations flow harmoniously where man is aware of nature - and in close communication with nature, as were the Chinese, whose Peking Man supplies our earliest evidence of civilisation across a gap of .half a million years. Then, China was as warm as Africa and roamed by wild beasts like the rhinoceros and elephant.

People who live under the sun, who plough their fields and are near the earth, are at the same time near the Creation. Their everyday experience is lived as a continuing whole, and they remain in harmony with their roots. It is reflected totally in their art work; in fact, for them the distinction between 'works of art' and non-artistic objects does not exist; the concept of folk art has been superimposed on present culture by the observer. They strive for beauty in ordinary utensils, in beautifully embroidered cloths, in bed­spreads, in the things they make and wear - for they live in it and experience it every day. They know the elements, they see the stars. They live in the embrace of a never­ending horizon line, and no concrete or pylons reach into the sky to blot it out. For them· their physical and metaphysical lives arc a continuing entity; intellect and emotion have not been severed. They experience the curve of the cosmic rhythms.

A Celebration of Creation

This was an exhibition at Leighton House. In the picture are shown, far left, 'Tree' (1968) 5x3.5 ft, in the centre, 'Lotus' (1974) 6x7 ft, and far right, 'Wind' (1969) 5x3.5 ft. I exhibited my abstract tapestries of the 60s, showing the movement behind life, such as movement of water, growing rings of trees, the winds and movement in space. I also showed the outward form of flowers, plant life and trees.

All tapestries are worked directly onto the canvas, as a painter works, without sketches but with a strong image held in my mind. As I weave and interweave using the aesthetics of a painter, I am also aware of the wide spectrum of threads I am using. I use needles and threads on a canvas and work in layers - layer upon layer to give a varying thickness to the surface and leaving spaces to give depth. I use opposite textures of threads juxtaposed - coarse and fine, natural and artificial, thick and thin, all used in a special way through splitting. This technique is my own innovation worked over the period 1958-62.

I must mention that within my mind, my thoughts and feelings move on different levels. For example, in 'Wind,' I discovered after about 4 years that I had woven a portrait of my sister as a bride with a teardrop forming at her shoulder - she died a year later. Her children became interwoven with my own family as they came to live in London.

Small tapestries, pencil drawings and paintings mirrored larger tapestries. The central core of Lotus became the first seven panels of the 'Modern Mercies'. Later I added three more panels to link North and South, giving a global dimension which included awareness of the environment.

Tapestry a new approach: Balance of hand, head and heart (1978) (The University of the Western Cape, 1978-79)

I believe in the whole of creation as one, regardless of colour, creed or handicap.

I believe in evolution as the means in the process of growth and change. Growth and development must evolve according to the laws of nature and subject to the relativities of the life cycle. If growth is too fast, it loses its cohesion. It is for us to understand these laws of nature in the growing process in which, through creative acts, we become transformed.

The flash of the bomb at Hiroshima revealed the destructive face of darkness and so we need to learn a new science of man. We need to learn not only to contain the energies in man in relation to the energies locked in the nucleus of the atom, for the nature of man is almost as terrifying as the unleashed energies in the atom. We need to learn understanding. This understanding begins first with self-knowledge in the individual linked to the collective. We must restore our balance of hand, head and heart, disturbed by one-directional technology.

We need not be afraid of the concepts of mechanisms in our technological age. Technology brings with it the mixed blessings of increased productivity and material progress full of contradictions. The concepts we learn scientifically, however, do not solve the mystery of life, and we must never cease to wonder at the miracle of continuing creation. Knowledge of concepts scientifically does, however, strengthen our faith in the lawfulness of life and growth.

The cycle of human development is continuous, from generation to generation. All growth is based on previous growth. The growth process is therefore a paradoxical mixture of creation and perpetuation. New beginnings start with the child - the unborn child. The child is alive to something new but always seminates the essence of the past - “Therefore choose life” (from Exodus).

Hand-woven tapestries on canvas dealing with my concerns about the life of people in industrial societies

Miriam Sacks*

*Artist, social anthropologist and writer. 32 Oakwood Court, Kensington, London W14, England (Received 8 Jan. 1981)

Miriam Sacks regarded this article as of great importance. It was published in Leonardo: International Journal of Contemporary Visual Arts which had a prestigious board of editors from around the world and which can be seen in the original document on the left-hand side. Also in the original document are images of the tapestries mentioned in the article.

Abstract - The author, seriously concerned about the implications of developments in present-day science and their worriesome technological applications in industrial societies, describes her technique of making tapestries woven by hand on a canvas support and discusses the subject matter that she has chosen for them with the aim of conveying a hopeful view of the future.

I. INTRODUCTION

It is recognized that artists reflect in their works mainly the culture into which they were born, although some respond to developments in the sciences, philosophy and ideology that run counter to their prevailing culture. I am particularly awestruck by new knowledge accumulated during the past century in the domains of cosmology and of nuclear physics. Numerous artists have had articles published in Leonardo in the past 14 years dealing with the influence of these developments and of technologies on the content and execution of their artworks.

The appearance of images provided by optical and electron microscopes and what chemists and physicists have learned about the structure of molecules and atoms especially intrigue me. I feel that there must be some similarity between the structure of the macrocosm and the microcosm and that the universe exercises a spiritual influence on humans.

The development of quantum mechanics, involv­ing the uncertainty principle and statistical mech­anics. has had an impact on the thinking of some artists, in some cases leading them to a mistaken belief that reason is now invalid and that the human condition is hopeless. I do not share this view and my optimism seems to me to be reflected in my artworks since I point to some kinds of order found in nature, for example to atomic fusion. It is hoped that the fusion process can be applied eventually by technologists to provide energy to maintain a standard of life at present threatened by the lack of sufficient renewable energy resources.

II. THE APPROACH TO MY ARTWORK

In 1958, after making paintings for six years, I turned to tapestry, since this medium seemed to me especially appropriate for my aim of depicting organic matter as well as humans moving towards wholeness in a hopeful world (1-6). In my first series of woven tapestries (I958-1973) I depicted especially those who work in industries where they become like 'robots'. but in the second series (1975-1979) I depict man as knight dedicated in giving service for the improvement of his life. The second series of I0 tapestries, entitled 'Modern Mercies', is based on the idea that these 'robots', with an awareness of the laws of nature where growth is a slow process, will become more human through fusion of inner and outer worlds within themselves as they gain know­ledge and understanding not only of others but of themselves. Individuals divided within themselves are likely to lead to divided societies.

Tapestries are traditionally made on looms, but my technique involves the use of my hands with linen canvas as in needlepoint work and with needles and threads. First, I prepare a weft of horizontal threads to form a structure of large areas of colours and textures. Gaps are left with no threads. Then, over this I weave a warp of threads, some of which are of either natural or synthetic materials, thick or fine, rough or smooth. warm or cool coloured, dull or shiny. I can weave many textures by this technique. textures that are not easily depicted or built-up with paints. and weaving gives me an additional tactile pleasure.

As I weave, I imagine the weft is a support for living forms on the Earth and the warp is a means of expressing their interactions. In some figurative tapestries I introduce signs and symbols and in non­figurative or abstract ones I may suggest a musical structure as in a fugue to imply polyphony and counterpoint. The tapestries inspired me to write this poem:

Structure is a skeleton of layered threads
interlaced with stitches cascading down­wards
interwoven like an orchestration of uneven parts
To form One
and creating depth.
Stitches are cosmic-like, unnoticeable but there
like part of the Milky Way
giving texture, giving tone.

III. DISCUSSION OF SELECTED TAPESTRIES

'Movement in Space' (Fig. 1, see colour plate) is a non-figurative tapestry in which I tried to provide a feeling of the structure of organic matter, with a hint of its underlying complexity. The intersecting lines and planes and the contrasting textures are woven together as an expression of the union of opposites. The sense of flow of the threads begins from a focal point in the large central zone where there are differently coloured areas. I choose rich blue colours, as in this tapestry, to convey my idea of deeply interiorized experiences, including my re­sponses to the exploration of extraterrestrial space. There are also tapestries in which earthy browns predominate. For example, the one in deep relief, 'Ancient and Modern Faces' (Fig. 2), was inspired by certain African masks. First, I built upon an oval-shaped canvas three layers of linen canvas up to a thickness of about 30 cm. The second layer was slit and foam rubber padding was forced between the layers to give form to mouth and eyes and to the parts of the large face. Upon this layer, using Icelandic sheep wool and raw fleece with thin crewel wool and thick tweed I built up a third layer, a square shape representing contemporary humans in industrial societies. I try to show that humans pass through three stages: from the archaic (the first layer), to the primitive (the second layer) and to the technological (the third layer). Humans in a technological society may well exhibit primitive behaviour in relation to materialism.

1 tend to make tapestries of non-figurative subjects with a loose weave; the voids between the threads give added depth. In 'Shells' (Fig. 3), a figurative example, the weave is tighter, but con­trast is provided by the coarser texture of the shell in the foreground and the delicate fine woven texture of the other shell.

I do not make sketches preparatory to weaving but depend on my retention of a mental image for an intended piece. My most persistent mental images involve creation of the universe, and these are presented in the tapestries 'Sensitivity of Sea Substance', 'Cosmic Energy', 'Wind' and 'Move­ment in Space' (Fig. I, see colour plate). The origin of these mental images probably lies in my experiences in the African bush that surrounds the city of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, where I lived from 1950 to 1964. There I was strongly affected not only by the open plains but also by the manifestations of nature ranging from tiny insects and plants to the vibrant light with dark shadows cast in the bush.

When I visited New York City in 1956, my African experience made me hostile to the enclosed environment of concrete, glass and plastics, where I felt people, measuring time with clocks, behaved like robots. 'Robot Man', with clock-like arms and hands, was woven on my return to Bulawayo. In 1964, I arrived in London, where I now live. Retaining the image of clockwork arms and legs, I introduced it two years later in the triptych 'Man'. I think of people in cities in industrial societies as rootless humans separated from pristine nature. I am especially concerned about the expanding utilization of natural resources brought about by the so-called 'population explosion' and the attend­ant demands of people for a better standard of life. My feelings of despair dominated my weaving of the tryptych 'Man'. Panel I of it, entitled 'Machine Man 20th Century', is shown in Fig. 4 (left). Humans are depicted in box-like outlines, around which silvery electrical circuits pass, to symbolize what I consider their confined highly unnatural existence. The predominant colours selected to suggest the age of electronics are deep blues and silvers. To heighten what I consider a contrast between organic and synthetic materials, I employed threads manufac­tured from natural fibres such as wool and threads of synthetic fibres of raffia twisted with Lurex and metallic strands. Silks and cottons predominate in the background and add contrasting textures. There is an emphasis on straight lines produced by long taut threads. Panel II shows Christ in transcendence and is meant to imply someone' reborn' to become a better integrated person within whatever kind of life a society offers. Panel Ill is intended to present the triumph of the spirit that leads to a 'cosmic human'.

I am unhappy with the aspect of technology that causes humans to consider consumer goods to be of more value than artworks made by hand. Computer technology that is capable of performing mental tasks previously limited to humans can, I believe, in turn stifle human potential. l fear that these developments disturb a preordained psychic equi­librium of human psychological factors that evolved over a period of millions of years. These attitudes of mine are now incorporated in 'Portrait 71', 'Elec­tronic Man I and II' and 'Processing', which were specifically prompted by visits to factories.

'Electronic Child' (Fig. 4, right) was inspired by the silicon chip of computer technology. Included in the tapestry are depictions of thousands of em­bedded transistors, which to me represent a feeble effort to approximate the structure of the human brain with its potential for creativity. The weaving was done principally in threads of blue colours, but it also includes pinks, reds and mauves. The woven pattern within, above and below the child, resembles circuits containing silicon chips. The tight weaving is of the conventional ribbed weave in tapestry made on a loom. I intended the weave to suggest my combined ideas of computer hardware and a mechanical loom. This approach in which a particular weaving technique is employed to suggest an aspect of a subject seems to me to be novel, at least in tapestries.

There are other negative aspects of industrial societies, such as the pollution of the natural environment. But, on the other hand, there are positive ones· such as the advances in medical science, in food production, in transportation and communication, in education and in extraterrestrial space exploration. The application of nuclear fission for the provision of energy poses serious problems, especially as regards radioactive waste products and obsolete nuclear reactors, which I hope-will be circumvented by a way to apply nuclear fusion.

I presented my artistic idea of nuclear fusion in the tapestry 'Lotus' (I973) (Fig. 5). Two cupped hands in green threads and the outer leaves in graded greens around a lotus flower were intended to suggest the containment of energy. In the centrally depicted energy core, I unintentionally wove an unborn child against a pink sky as at dawn. To me the composition symbolizes rebirth of a spiritual, ecological balance of humankind. In my view, human survival is linked with the mainten­ance of present-day plant and animal life, although I am aware that the possible tremendous, unpredict­able forces of nature may lead to a quite different ecological balance. However, 1 believe the same basic forms and structures will remain. The depicted hands in Fig. 5 were emphasized because they were meant to signify the role of human hands in transforming what nature has provided. The tapes­try falls in folds when hung on a wall, so that the hands appear to have been woven in relief. The symbolization of nuclear fusion at the centre suggests to me also cultural interactions between the Orient and the Occident, which I believe can be fruitful.

'Knight Crossing a Bridge' (Fig. 6, left) is the first of a series of panels I call 'Modern Mercies'. The knight, although depicted in a rigid block-like outline, is surrounded by what I regard as· a harmonious structure of technological elements that provide useful services. The chequer-board array on which the knight stands is intended to signify the game of life as a bridge to an enlightened way of life, symbolized by his spread wings. The weave is uniformly smoother in texture than in previous works to give one a feeling of fused integration as well as simplicity.

Panel II. 'Knight Merging with the Land', with a background of hills merging with water is meant to emphasize respect by humans for the present natural environment. The form of a fish is depicted in the knight's body to underline the dependence of humans upon the sea for food and livelihood. Panel III, 'Dreaming of Houses' (Fig. 6. centre), shows a woven ladder of houses intended to focus on the problem of housing. It is woven in brick reds, browns and muted pinks. The structure of merging squares is meant to imply the interaction of the housing needs of an individual with the conflicting housing desires of others.

Panel IV, 'Knight and Loaves', applies to life in the Republic of South Africa (R.S.A.), where a bridge is needed to resolve the conflict between the black and white people as well as with the rest of the world. Advanced technology can provide that bridge not only for the R.S.A. but for its neighbours as well. Loaves of bread depicted within the body of the knight are meant to symbolize the sharing of the Biblical loaves and fishes, which is also the subject of Panel V, 'Knight and the Fishes'. This signifies. what I call 'the Christ in humankind'. The subject of Panel V contains an allusion to what some consider as a threat of the pollution of the oceans. Panel VI, 'Knight in the Gardens', in strong greens, blues, reds and pinks, is my pictorial presentation of what I regard as humans living in wholesome, pollution­-free environments. Finally, Panel VII, 'Knight in Tranquility', is directed to my wish for the achievement of world understanding. The different expressions on the faces of the knights in the series of panels are intended not only to express a growing awareness but also to signify the differences in individuals who are, nevertheless, united in their intent to contribute to the welfare of humanity.

The above seven panels, completed in 1975-76, measure 200 X 50 cm each; and they were first exhibited in a circular arrangement on a structure with angles and faced outwards. This arrangement was intended to draw attention to individual panels from different direction, in order to emphasize the multifaceted characteristics of people in industrial societies. Later, I added to 'Modern Mercies' three more panels: 'Brown Machine Man (Panel VIII, 1976), 'Dreaming of Home' (Panel IX, 1978, and 'Knight of the Burning Bush' (Panel X, 1979. 'Dreaming of Home' (Fig. 6, right) was my response to the urban problems of of Black migrant workers separated from their families that gave them roots. 'Knight and the Burning Bush' continues this theme of social and individual psychological alienation of many humans as well as expressing the limit to what can be taken out of the Earth to give gold and other natural resources.

The problems I have dealt with in my tapestries are those I have perceived in the societies of Zimbabwe, the R.S.A., the U.S.A. and, particularly, England. I am optimistic that they can be overcome by the inventiveness and resourcefulness of humans. As an artist now resident in Britain, I feel that my duty is to react to what I consider to be major social problems of the present world and to deal with them in my artwork in such a way as to contribute, at least in some small measure to their resolution.

A New Approach to Tapestry

As an innovator of a new approach in my medium of woven images that I call tapestry, I have been asked questions and have had to give explanations continually. Begun in 1958, my approach is a fusion of old and new. In response to an ever increasing crescendo of questioning ten years later, in 1968, I answered briefly with a leaflet "Tapestry and Art, a new approach".

The word "tapestry" comes from the Greek word tapes meaning "rug" or "woollen fabric". It is defined as a weft of coloured wools or silks, forming designs or pictures, worked into a warp of hemp or linen in an interlacing action. The loom is usually used in weaving these two sets of elements. It can involve using the hands by manipulating the threads held in tension by the warp which, for me, is provided by the tapestry canvas of linen. Using both hands, I interlace threads placed horizontally across the canvas in layers, use a needle which moves into the canvas through the back and interlaces over the layered threads acting as a weft.

Working this way gave me a sense of playing the piano, creating a poetic consciousness in my mind related to music, strands of which work in a counterpoint technique. This is the strong basis of my structure. It is not just a technique of skilled handwork.

Craftsmanship involves cultivation of the mind which I have interwoven with the aesthetics of a painter. The rapport I feel with music seems to share the same rhythms, hear the same melodies, understand the same harmonies and dynamics. For melody forms the theme, rhythm gives the movement of line and harmony chooses colours and textures as well as giving proportion through interweaving and organising space.

From the beginning I did not want to restrict myself by using a loom. Working with needles and threads on a canvas moving in many directions gives me a sense of freedom while exploring the canvas. It allows me to discover new surface textures and, in time, innovate new forms with emphasis on structure and order.

I use the same tools and materials as embroiderers but I have created a very different approach although I started with the conventional tent stitch employed by embroiderers in Tudor times. It reached its height with what was known as "needlework creull" in the seventeenth century. Embroidery, however, I saw as the decorative use of stitches to enrich a material by manipulating needle and thread while emphasising the stitch. I very much admire the beauty of embroidery, a craft with a long history that has produced museum treasures while passing on in the family through generations to give continuity.

My own creativity, however, gained impetus in rebelling against the dominance of the stitch. I had learnt to work with the tent stitch through my mother whose cushions and chair covers, with their Victorian patterns of tightly graded colours, were placed on our antique furniture. While I continued to paint, my tapestry technique passed through three stages of development, during four to five years of experimentation from 1958 onwards. It moved from a smooth surface when I initially employed the tent stitch, producing a precise machine-like surface, to a more modulated surface as I placed threads in layers across the canvas. In time I interwove new surfaces and forms with new ideas and concepts working in series as in contemporary painting, the work becoming multi-faceted with a north-south, east-west consciousness.

My tapestries should be looked at as one would a painting, seeing the image as a whole and viewing it at various distances to give different perspectives. It is not the examination of stitches but a response to surface textures with a modulation of light-catching threads. The stitch is part of texture and tone.

In 1977, in my brochure for my first exhibition at Leighton House, wrote: "The whole of my work is based on an analogy within my mind of a canvas of life in which all creatures form part of a cosmic whole of positive and negative forces. Plants, animals, human beings interweave, act and interact at varying levels like threads in a tapestry. Stitches are like atoms forming part of a whole, but just as atoms are not visible to the human eye, so stitches must be 'unstitchlike' and remain hidden. They become more noticeable as part of surface textures. Threads are of varying densities, both coarse and fine, natural and artificial, rough and smooth. In using threads, I am aware that each thread, however small, retains its own identity within the whole yet merges like paint with other threads."

In the 60s, while working on long panels of "Man as Machine", I also experimented with a more complex technique, working in depth creating abstract tapestries with a fractal aesthetic. In my 1977 brochure, I had written: "One of my reasons for putting down my brush to take up needle and threads in 1958, was because I questioned the use of paint for abstract imagery. I believed paint could not create the depths implicit in abstract thought because of the quality of light reflection of paint which is thrown off the canvas. Paint usually requires a coat of varnish to bring out its fullness of colour and varnish can give rise to too much reflection from the paint surface. Abstract art should bring an inner richness; it is not of the surface like a print on a curtain, but by its fullness of concept demands a luminosity that relates not just to surface modulations of light but reaches into intangible textures on other planes. The juxtapositioning of threads of contrasting textures and densities can achieve this within a certain structure."

Technically, I used large sweeps of long threads like brushstrokes to weave "Movement of Water", "Movement in Space", "Wind", "Cosmic Energy", "Light Intersecting" and "Eye". I worked in layers of threads of different densities, leaving spaces to show the warp of the canvas to create depth. This structure was woven in light and shade as my hand moved backwards and forwards over the canvas and the light and shade massed areas of threads had irregular outlines like large blobs of paint. Where there was movement, the structure was woven diagonally and the layers were overlaid with loops of thread like stitches cascading downwards, forming part of texture and tone. I would say that I had a dialectic approach where tensions are resolved in harmony with the whole. The density of the layers varied and became thinner over the years. The shapes of the canvases were rectilinear, long, round, cradle-shaped and oval and included a butterfly and a double-sided, three-dimensional bat.

In 1971, I had begun to work on miniature tapestries and generally "scaled down in size" as I wrote in the brochure for my Royal Festival Hall exhibition, where my work hung alongside drawings of musicians from the Victoria and Albert Musuem. After I wove my largest tapestry "Lotus" (6 x 7ft) in 1973, I developed a miniaturised technique, when I used small threads while observing light falling on shells, making abstract iridescent patterns. I used a magnifying glass and worked in a series as I had done with my long panels of the "Modern Mercies".

I have always worked directly onto my canvas as a painter does, using an inner and outer eye while becoming aware of a wide spectrum of threads, feeling and knowing their opposite qualities which I juxtapose. I never follow sketches but work with a freedom balanced by an awareness of order. My work has become more integrated, less textured and smaller. I am concentrating more on miniatures of buildings and of houses which have a more visible technique interwoven with decoration and perspective. "Houses and Housing" interests me not only aesthetically but also as a social concern. It links with my early work as a painter and tapestry artist, forming a thread in my work relating to my interests as artist and social anthropologist.

Visual Music

In 1985, in my brochure for an exhibition at Leighton House, I wrote, "In 1983, continuing a thread of interweaving music with my tapestries, I wove a new series celebrating the cycle of Vivaldi's Four Seasons". Compared with my complexly structured tapestries in the '60s and early '7Os, which were woven in counterpoint over a densely textured canvas, in the new series I explored an area of visual music related to notation on a less modulated and textured surface. As I interwove threads of a melodic line of different sizes, textures and colours to suggest note values and different strands of sounds, I saw movement horizontally and vertically as in the many voices of polyphony. I also aimed to have, within each tapestry, a balance of the abstract through visual music with the concrete through outward forms of trees, flowers and fruit, symbolic of growth and development.

Visual music, as described initially in my way, was woven within the central space of a geometrical shape, varying with each season: a rectangle for spring, circle for summer, ellipse for autumn and a square for winter. Each was filled with light and different colours to suggest contrapunctal textures. The surface weave of these tapestries had fewer layers, were more fused, carrying the melodic lines in bands like staff lines. The whole surface was more fused."

Music, like art, is a universal language and has no barriers. It is a lesson in relative values. As there is no light without shade, so there is no forte without piano, with gradations of these loud and soft qualities in an architectonic structure. So in 1989-90, with thoughts of the physical environment as a global problem, I decided once more to celebrate the beauty and positive qualities I found in the flowers, fruit, trees and landscapes of South Africa. The daisies replaced the cherry blossom in spring, the proteas and grapes replaced the roses of summer, the cosmos I saw in profusion in the Transvaal replaced the autumn golds and reds I saw in London.

I believe visual music used in this way can be explored to help children with learning difficulties as it brings together aural and visual stimulus through the sequence of pictures. The social and cultural environment is experienced by children as a continuing chain of events. It gives an order. The wide range of opposite qualities of threads can provide stimulating thoughts of textures both coarse and fine, artificial and natural, thick and thin, The thread itself is a metaphor for continuity and will provide a healing process in stimulating creativity.

I have taken music as a metaphor for the balance of hand, head and heart. As the creative energy produces a change from imbalance to balance in the process of transformation, I emphasise, firstly, part of the whole and then the whole. In suggesting part of the whole, I place focus on the hands as in "Playing an Ancient Harp". This I repeat in "Sounds of a Flute" as the half form of a girl enters the canvas, whereas in "Chamber Music", the viola player is almost centre stage. In the background of this canvas, the trousered legs of the cellist are only just seen in a balance of female and male. The whole figure emerges in the series of the four "Children of the North, South, East and West".

In creating the "Four Seasons", I expressed the hope that the fullness of nature, with its sense of renewal and continuity, might regain its place alongside the machines of our manmade universe, to restore the balance in the face of change brought by 20th century technology.

How my tapestries relate to music - Through the Eye of a Needle

In this mood of cosmic rhythms, I see my tapestries related to music, particularly in form and structure. The rapport I feel with music, seems to share the same rhythms, hear the same melodies, understand the same harmonies and dynamics. For melody forms the theme, rhythm gives the movement of line, and harmony chooses colours and textures as well as giving proportion through interweaving and organizing space.

For me the vertical chords of various voices as in polyphonic textures, are like stitches cascading downwards. The horizontal movement of threads carry the melody of massed areas of colour, moving in counterpoint with harmony and creating depth. There is an orchestration of uneven parts to form One; the One consisting of the many which has within it the harmony of opposites. The word weaving implies harmony, a feeling of coming together.

In music, harmony is defined as the agreeable and simultaneous combination of two or more notes of different pitches. The notes become colours for me, while the pitches relate to the hue and intensity of colours. The essence of contrapuntal style is the contrast between the independent voices which are set off from each other by contrasts in rhythm and contours. These contrasts cause the music to unfold on several planes creating an impression of depth as in the "Still Point" where circles and elipses unfold from a sphere. At the same time, it is like looking through and beyond to where all points meet and link to form a meaningful whole.

Our world is permeated throughout by waves and vibrations, forming rhythms. The universe is built on rhythm from the rhythmic motion of the planets, to the tides with their waves and the seasons coming and going. All growth moves in a rhythm.

Rhythm is not just one beat after the other as in the regularity of a clock; it must have a shape of different accents and stresses as in long and short vibrations like the beating heart.

A line is made up of various points which can be long or short, running up and down with high peaks and low peaks; or it can curve to suggest a spiral of energy. In its twisting curve, it creates more force than a straight line which can only suggest the mechanical.

Musical notes are produced by vibrations. The pitch of a tone, the rate of vibration determining a high or low pitch. What we hear as a single tone is usually a combination of the fundamental tone and all its overtones. What we see as white light is really the combination of all the colours of the spectrum.

When we hear, what happens is that waves travelling through the air, impinge on our ear. This is something that can have a particularly productive effect on the mind of a creative artist whose work is connected with visualization. The artist can ‘see’ these sounds which are waves of vibration forming patterns as the rhythm is felt. The very essence of sound coming into being, unfolding as a pattern, takes shape in line, colour and image in the artist’s mind in a variety of ways.

Notes on music and texture: The structure of my work as artist

The dictionary defines texture as the arrangement or disposition of threads of a woven fabric. Musicians have adopted this term, because it applies rather well to their art:

(A) monophone, or single voiced texture, is music heard as a single strand of melody.

(B) polyphonic, or many voiced texture, in which three or more melodic lines are combined. Polyphonic music is based on counterpoint - the art of combining several melodic lines or voices in a unified musical fabric.

The essence of contrapuntal (music) style is the contrast between the opposite voices which are set off against each other in rhythm and contour. These contrasts cause the music to unfold on several planes, creating an impression of depth and unflagging movement that can be obtained in no other way.

In my work, I use line with ups and downs and use contrasting textures in materials as in the ‘Still Point’, where I use silk, wool or straw with lurex.

Used in counterpoint, this creates depth, especially as threads are laid on canvas, leaving spaces and used loosely.

(C) homophonic texture, where a single voice causes the melody line and accompanying voices to surrender their independence and coalesce in blocks of harmony or chordal texture. So you have a vertical aspect with chords and a horizontal aspect carrying the melody.

Counterpoint exalts the structural and formal values of music. It has a special appeal to the intellectual musician who sees in its abstraction and refinement of thought, the purest, most exalted musical discourse. Counterpoint provides a fabric of richly woven (material) texture, weaving harmony and counterpoint of which Bach and Handel were the masters.

This was followed - that is music moved from baroque grandeur to the grace of the Rococo - by single line melodies set against a simple chord background.

In the 18th century, there developed a dynamic orchestral style based on animated interplay of different instrumental parts. The texture was light and limpid, as in the high classical period, the era of Hadyn, Mozart and the younger Beethoven.

In the 19th century, texture grew thick and opaque, as exemplified by Wagner, Strauss, Mahler and Schoenberg. Then there was an about-face with contemporary 20th century music.

In the sixties, my abstract tapestries used rich textures, textures of the tangible and intangible in ‘Still Point’, ‘Wind’, ‘Movement of Water’, ‘Cosmic Energy’, ‘Movement in Space’, etc. In the early 70s this became lighter, more on the surface, as in ‘The Four Seasons’.

Ideas and Concepts: Technology and transformation in a time of Industrialisation

In weaving tapestries in a series, I see a theme unfolding in time like a long symphony or concerto. Tapestries woven in a series are not planned as such. They grow organically, interweaving with new experiences, forming a chain in imagery and ideas which sometimes take years to evolve, This is how "Transformation -Ancient and Modern Faces" developed into a series while interwoven with the effects of technology.

In this series, I wove "Ancient Man" in 1972, after my first visit to Cape Town when my work began to bridge with South Africa. It was my first attempt at a semi­-sculptural form influenced by the mask. At almost the same time, I wove "Modern Man with a bow-tie". On the canvas, the image emerged from a television screen as I thought of a well-known presenter of that time. This was followed by "Woman Emerging from a Cage" with a chain necklace round her neck. Then, many years later, on 11 February 1 991 , I arrived in Johannesburg and watched on television a great occasion as Nelson Mandela became a free man. Again the television screen was imprinted on my mind and I began to weave a second "Modern Man Communicating through technology". This series was completed with "Woman Long, Long, Ago." To the series I added the butterfly, representing transformation.

In June 197 5, the first tapestry of a series which grew into seven long panels over a year, was conceived. I had just sold the last of my "Electronic Grey Man" tapestries. As I drove over the Hammersmith Bridge, I saw, in a moment of hope, a long panel of "Knight Crossing a Bridge", forming in my mind's eye.

It connected with an awareness that the individual has to bridge inner and outer needs. The outer needs that a human being must satisfy in order to continue as a social animal relate to shelter, nutrition and the bio-physical, linking with the environment. Inner needs are both psychological and spiritual. I saw the individual becoming a knight to give service to improve life.

During a year in which I travelled from London in the north to Cape Town in the south, I wove more long panels completing a series of seven which I called the "Modern Mercies". Images included houses and housing, the sharing of the loaves and fishes woven unconsciously as a theme. They also focused on sea and plant life as a veiled figure emerged in Panel VII, surrounded by a rainbow.

In August 1976, I remained in Cape Town for several months and began to link Panel VIII to the seven panels of "Modern Mercies" as I wove "Brown Machine Man". This was followed in 1978 and 1979 by two black machine man figures. They were "Dreaming of Home" and "In the City", Panels IX and X. I linked what I observed in the north, living in London in a highly industrial and mechanised society, with what I began to observe more closely in the south while annually visiting South Africa. As I wove the panels, I felt both the positive and negative aspects of technology. But the process of transformation and integration takes a long time and there is always hope.

Our Changing Society

One of the most important aspects of our changing society is the moral transformation of man and the man-made universe, which is the world as transformed by technology and machines. 

Morals cannot be measured. The ten commandments are set out very simply as guidelines. The world we live in is, however, complex and the only way to understand absolute rules is through the relative which sets up paradox, for it seems that the only way to universality is via individuality.

The first step to take in this direction is to ally ourselves with nature again - to understand the rules of nature which man, through technology, is dominating instead of respecting.

We must recognise that growth is slow and, in moving from balance to imbalance, must move back to balance again. We move from the simple to the complex and must always be aware of organic qualities. Moral transformation involves scaling down in size (symbolised in miniature tapestries). ‘Modern Mercies’ show the loaves and fishes (as in panels iv and v) overcoming greed, panel iii and x show caring for the sick, handicapped, the weak - our children. We should not abuse the machine which is here to aid us; machines are here to benefit us if correctly used (see article in Leonardo).

The 60s and 70s

In the sixties, images of Creationcentered around the movement behind life: the movement of water, cosmic energy, the wind, movement in space in which I worked with the spiral, showing opposing forces through light and shade of structure and opposite textures.

Later, I wove the outer forms of trees, having made inner growth in ‘Maturation’’ through the rings of growth and of ‘tree rhythms’. The tree - the wood - was the Earth. I worked on all aspects of the tree, its roots, trunk, branches, leaves - the whole tree as in the ‘Mandala Tree’.

I concentrated on macrocosm and tapestries were large.

In the 70s, tapestries became smaller and the first miniature, 'Roots', was made in 1971. I concentrated more and more on a microcosmic world as in 'Shells reflecting an iridescent light'.

At the same time as my organic tapestries, I concentrated on the theme of man as machine-asarobot becoming a knight - showing fission and fusion culminating in tapestries such as ‘Lotus’, showing growth and balance, and the ten panels of ‘Modern Mercies’, and the ‘New Generation’ series, showing the industrial becoming human and whole again.