IG: @grae_peters_textiles

A Woven Grove

Entangled cloth and winding thread replicates the gnarled texture and quiet space of the woodland areas that have provided me with consistent company, surrounded me, and inspired me. I have made a foldable forest with weavings with the goal to provoke a desire for touch. The repetition of the loom lifting the warp threads and the shuttle gliding back and forth allows me to achieve a flow state where I can freely create and experience tactile joy. As I weave, I have photos of forests pinned to the wall next to my loom and cones of earth colored yarn stacked and scattered around my bench. I allow the materials to direct the choices of my hands, thin cotton yarn makes angular lines against swooping curves of chunky wool. My body creates a template for scale. A yard measurement becomes the length of my arms, my thumb an inch–the way my mother taught me–an imperfect system certainly, yet it lends itself to make the work with more organic and human impressions. Decisions are made through curiosity and versatility, focusing on the making itself rather than specific processes. I weave in small sections, step back, experience the distinct elements, and combine the final form into the whole. The work is completed when I want to touch it and perceive all of its variation, its texture and quiet into its totality.

Bio

Grae Peters is a textile artist based in Portland Maine. Peters is expected to graduate from Maine College of Art & Design with a BFA in Textile and Fashion Design in 2023.

Their work is based around their experiences in the natural world. This comes from playing in the woods behind their childhood home and visiting national parks on summer vacation with their family. This work is mostly made through weaving and screenprinting but also includes felted and sewn work. Peters’ father is a woodturner and mother is a photographer, this instilled an appreciation for the arts and access to materials from a young age. Peters intends to connect work to tactile experiences and create the sensibility of the natural world in interior spaces.