Elaina Runge

This diptych is the culmination of a different perspective that the ocean puts forth: the elusive nature of the surface color. By using the same collection of ikat-dyed blue wefts woven on two differently colored warps, the viewer is forced to rely on memory to properly compare the pieces. the title "And" alludes to the combined and often fragmented recollections that we use to compile images of places that are fleeting and transitive in nature.

Photo: Nastia Onegina

Green warp

Photo: Nastia Onegina

Violet warp

 Photo: Nastia Onegina

Detail

This work arose from an exploration in blue, a color name that can have so many potential referents. Living by the sea for a summer, how could I trace the subtle or dramatic changes that took place each day? Each blue erased the previous, as memory rifles through color chips, seeking the right shade but inevitably affected by ones experience searching as much as the initial experience that inspired the search.

Additionally, this process enabled a desire that I have long held, to set up systems in the preliminary stage of yarn development that would have lasting effects on the resulting cloth. Woven in a simple twill, the consequences of the ikat show clearly to the viewer who may not be versed in the implications of more complicated structures.

Especially when photographed, each blue chip is affected by what surrounds it. Using oil paint, each day I tried to mix the blues that I had seen in the water that day. Juxtaposed together some blues force others to read as other colors.

Winding the skeins of linen. Resists will be tied in the center of each open section.

The intervals of the skein winder determined the width of the weaving. It needed to be a multiple of 9.25" in order for the argyle shape to appear.

Stock solutions to mix the blues.

Submerged skeins at the end of the session.