![]() It feels good to be able to do something for them that helps in that regard.”Īs of late, nature has taken a larger role in her work, influencing her “Color Memory” weavings in which she distills memory and place into the simple beauty of colors. “And in the case of the past two years, just trying to make sense of what’s going on around them. Everyone is in a state of transition, trying to figure something out for themselves,” she says. “It's a good reminder that everyone is going through something. “I wanted more serendipity and less ‘what’s trending.’ It helped me pull back from perfection and to learn to live with not having to know everything or control everything all the time.”įor many customers, these commissions mark a major milestone in their lives. Now I see clearly I was rebelling against the grind of work and the role of technology in automating our lives,” she says. “I didn’t know at the time why I was drawn to using chance objects to generate random pattern. ![]() To Darcie, it’s about letting go of control and perfection and accepting things for what they are. ![]() She uses hand-dyed churro wool from New Mexico and selects colors at random to create vibrant tapestries with a life of their own. Many individuals commission Darcie for one of her “Chance” weavings, which use tarot, astrology and even Magic 8 Ball readings to unpack big life questions and chronicle periods of transition. Her tapestries are in hot demand, with a sometimes months-long waitlist. Ten years and seven looms later, Darcie now makes large weavings at her home in Boulder, exploring big-picture concepts like acceptance, chance, memory and the beauty of imperfection. When her year of experimentation ended, she signed up for an eight-week weaving class to make a few scarves, which turned into making a few tapestries to “have around the house.” ![]() Several textile crafts made the list, but weaving didn’t make the final, 52-week cut. “It was the beginning of me saying, ‘What do I really like to do?’ It’s interesting when you let yourself follow where things are going to see where you might end up, and how much happier you can feel as a result,” she explains. She had just moved to Boulder from Los Angeles and was attempting to unravel the effects of a high-intensity “workaholic” career in advertising. “I started with some things I knew I liked and let it evolve from there,” she says. She chronicled them in her blog, 52 to Do, in attempt to figure out what she really, actually liked doing. I moved forward by starting a project that I knew was already “proofed.From January 2011 to January 2012, Boulder artist Darcie Shively tried 52 new things. Luckily for me, I knew the solution to my problem because the same panic attack had struck me when I got my 8-shaft loom. It felt like all of my ideas floated right out of my head, and I panicked a little. I succumbed to temptation and purchased a 24-shaft dobby loom. It is sturdy and quiet and a good companion to the ever-thinner yarns I find myself drawn to.Ī few years later, I noticed that sometimes I needed even more shafts than 8 to weave the designs I had in my head summer and winter with figures, damask, patterned doubleweave, and the like. I purchased an 8-shaft loom and happily wove on it for many years, and to this day, I am happy when weaving on it. Somehow I survived those projects and developed a love for the process and products of handweaving.Īt some point, I graduated to 8-shaft looms. On 4-shaft looms, I wove my first sampler, progressed to some ill-fated placemats, and then wove a couple of wormy chenille scarves. Like many weavers, I started weaving on 4-shaft looms. Remembering my own progress in learning to weave, I conceived of Loom Theory: Eight and Over Eight Scarf Collection to help other weavers progress in their own weaving careers.
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