Weaving with Wire - Creating Woven Metal Fabric
Christine K. Miller
Schiffer publishing
I am always looking for ways to incorporate new materials into my already tactile artistic practice. Admittedly wire has not previously come to my attention.
Have you ever experienced the joys of using a simple loom with any threads or wool? As an artist, I could never be bothered unless I had a real inspirational force, a way of making the method my own as it were. This book excites me, as it reminds me of the vegetable garden inspired weaving I did at university. Within my work I used many melted plastics, made into strips to be woven through my hand held loom - imagine though if you could achieve this on a professional level; essentially making a new fabric, one which could stand up on its own, become a sculpture, a vase, or anything your mind can manipulate! This experienced author and weaver from Dallas can lead us through some possibilities.
On first glance, this book may seem too daunting. How can we textile based artists begin to use a sculptural technique? I tell you - you - I - we - can. We just may need to not set our standards too high. Think about how it could become a part of your artwork, not suddenly jumpy from one practice to another. Use it to excite you, to renew you - as one quote within the book on page 133 tells us - ‘Art doesn’t have to be what you think it’s going to be’ - I can imagine that standard of thinking will help on the first attempts.
Yes, some stages of the step by step guidance on making this woven structure can be a tad scary looking, however flick though and you will find smaller items - i.e. what about jewellery design?
Christine’s work is explored visually, on that note, this book has plenty of illustrations, so this makes the method a lot less scary too.
I would advise you to begin at the begining as it were, don’t jump straight in - plan! Just take it one learning curve at a time and see where it could take you.