Unraveling the Art of Fiber

At first blush, one wonders why Nicki Bair, a Pacific Palisades artist who bursts like soap bubbles with creative ideas, chose the meditative nature of weaving over the quicksilver of watercolor. In her case, technique and texture trump time. The art of weaving and tapestry is a rediscovery for many artists, who are attracted by many aspects of fiber art. Bair and fellow weaver Merna Strauch, a Palisades Highlands resident, recently received top honors in the Fiber Open II, a national juried exhibition, held early this month at the Studio Channel Islands Art Center. Bair won the Handweavers Guild of America Award for outstanding creativity and craftsmanship for her three-dimensional woven sculpture, ‘My Tapestry Spiral.’ Strauch took first place for her wedge-weave tapestry, ‘Echoes.’ Both women became friends through their participation in several of the many local and national weaving associations that provide training and camaraderie to like-minded artists. Although Nicki’s mother was a weaver, it wasn’t until her death in 2002 when Nicki inherited her mom’s black four-harness loom that had stood in her kitchen, that she discovered her mother’s joy. Merna took up weaving in the 1970s, after taking a course at the Smithsonian when she and her husband Ralph lived in Washington, D. C. ‘I started out using a picture frame, but then in the late ’70s I bought loom.’ As with many specialty arts, there are accoutrements to accompany weaving. When Nicki’s mother died, Nicki’s sister announced that ‘all the art stuff goes to Nicki.’ So she inherited the loom, books and boxes of yarn. In the ensuing years, she has collected four more looms, each of which is in service, which explains how she can develop so many ideas simultaneously. A vertical loom, one of three in her living room, is used for tapestry, another horizontal loom equipped with eight different shafts is for complex patterns. She uses her mother’s loom for sentimental reasons, and as a source of inspiration. While enjoying traditional weaving’the interlacing of two distinct sets of yarn, the warp and weft’Nicki and Merna are also drawn to the creative possibilities found in tapestry. In this form of textile art, all the warp threads are hidden in the complete work. ‘In tapestry you can do whatever you want, using the tactile quality of your yarn,’ Merna says. ‘The other distinction with tapestry is that the weft is discontinuous. You don’t have to go from one side to the other, which allows you to interlace each colored weft back and forth in its own small pattern area.’ Nicki and Merna also share a similar background in math. Merna majored in math at UCLA and was employed as a math technician at the aerospace firm AirResearch, where she assisted on the first Project Mercury. Later, she worked as a public health statistician. She is amused that her jobs were made redundant by the advent of computers. At that point, she retired to weave and to do volunteer work. ‘I was a potter before I was a weaver,’ Merna says. ‘I remember when the children were little, I would wait until my husband came home from work to do my ceramics. But when I discovered weaving, it was much less messy and not breakable like clay, so the choice was easy.’ She does prefer to work on small pieces, not only for space considerations, but for time. Nicki enjoyed a career as a financial executive with Transamerica Services in Los Angeles. She liked the challenge of building things, like mutual fund products, but not so much running them. So, five years ago, she retired, no longer challenged. ‘I had this thought of what I’d do when I retired,’ she recalls. ‘I’d either start a financial planning business or perhaps become an artist. My friends thought I was crazy to want to do art, so I did.’ Nicki rises early and sits down at one of her looms to work the morning through. On one loom, she is weaving a piece with sewing thread, which glows like spider’s silk. On the horizontal loom in the living room, she is developing her latest idea: a murder mystery. ‘I am writing the story in words and weaving in weft. Each character will have its own identifying pattern, as will the mood of the drama: scary, confusing, calm.’ Every four inches, Nicki has slipped in a court reporter’s erasing tape with words printed on it, which she describes as ‘the words not used.’ If this weren’t enough, Nicki imagines this ‘book’ made into a kimono, lined with pieced silk that will have a stencil of the front and back covers of the book. She expects to enter this in a contest and plans to have the material completed by October. For the intricate pieces, Nicki uses a pattern. Merna laughs, pointing to Nicki’s pattern for one of her beetle series that, as appropriate to her mathematical background, was created on an Excel spreadsheet. Weaving provides not only an artistic outlet, but also a sanctuary, the friends explain. In her recent award-winning piece, Merna explored the frontiers of the tapestry medium. For a number of years, she included small areas of wedge weave in her tapestries. This distorts the edge of the piece, producing a scalloped effect. The other side of the piece had the traditional straight selvedge. Her challenge? What happens when the distorted area on one side meets the traditional tapestry woven area? The answer came in the monochromatic ‘Edges’ series. ‘Echoes’ is the fifth piece in the series. Nicki’s winning piece came out looking like 17 yards of fusilli, she says, pointing to its spiral shape. There is a growing population of weavers, the women agree. ‘I think it comes from an interest in knitting,’ Merna says. ‘Now there are smaller looms aimed at knitters. They are portable so you can carry them around and can be practical if you live in a small apartment.’ As an avenue to friendship, both women feel deep loyalty to the Seaside Weavers, a Westside group, that Merna has been affiliated with for 30 years. ‘We have been thinking about writing a book about traveling together,’ says Merna, recalling the many life stories the members have shared over the decades. For more information, contact The Weaving Diva nicki@nickibair.com