By Beth Fox
Although my grasp of color theory in tapestry weaving has grown considerably stronger over the past five years, I’ve been intrigued by the idea of using Color Aid silk papers in palette selection but hesitated to invest in an expensive tool that I didn’t really understand how to use. More importantly, after years of experiencing inconsistent and sometimes disappointing results when hand-dyeing my own yarn, I packed up my dye pots and supplies and shoved them into the deepest recesses of my garage. Years later I was inspired to give it another try after reading about the workshops that tapestry artist Mary Zicafoose offers. Since she uses only yarn dyed in her studio for her massive ikat tapestries (the two hanging in the Cancer Center in Omaha are each 12’ x 9’!), she and her studio assistants must adhere as much as possible to diligent notetaking and adherence to process and procedure.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Northern Colorado Weavers Guild scholarship fund and to the Board for accepting my scholarship application, I was able to attend Mary’s two-day workshop that she tailored specifically for the Northern Colorado Weavers Guild.
On Day One we used the Color Aid paper to learn and apply the color theory advanced by the famous colorist Josef Albers. We spread our set of 314 cards out before us, categorized by hue and saturation. Mary taught us how hues interact with one another and how to use the cards to plan projects.
We spent the day cutting and pasting the cards into workbooks in accordance with specific lessons in color theory, and Mary was sure to provide individual instruction whenever needed. I wasn’t the only one to say “I thought I knew what purple looked like before today…!??”
On Day Two we were greeted by the exciting sight of gram scales, electric burners and stockpots on our tables and another table loaded up with dye powder and everything we needed to mix the dye stocks that would form the basis of our dye baths. Working in teams of two, we paid close attention to our measurements of dye powder to water and auxiliaries. While we waited for our dye baths to come up to the proper temperature we learned about gradation dyeing. As a group we voted to dye gradients of blue, and each team was then responsible for dyeing one of six gradients. Seeing the end results was an interesting lesson in how some values appeared to be the same after dyeing in spite of different dilutions.
I was so inspired by working with the Color Aid cards that a few weeks later I went through many of the exercises again and then used them to create a triad color palette for a potential project. Thanks to Mary’s detailed instructions regarding her recordkeeping and dyeing process, I’m ready to set up a dye studio in my garage. We’re gonna need a bigger garage!
