Anne Kirsti – Espenes Geometric Rose Garden

Anne-Kirsti starts with an idea and a sketch. The sketch remains just a guidance kept next to her, as the idea is realised in her weaving. She could never have somebody else weave her tapestries. She loves blending and each piece emerges from the interaction between her sense of colour and the textile materials she has chosen for the project. Like a brick wall, many of her tapestries are made of repetitive shapes, woven one by one next to each other.

In Anne-Kirsti’s miniature tapestries she uses various materials like wool, linen, cotton, silk and nettle yarn. Her larger tapestries are mainly made of wool and linen mixed on the bobbins. She likes the texture created by this blend as it is not too soft.

‘Geometric Rose Garden’ has linen warp, and it is woven with two or three strands of wool mixed with one strand of linen. It has a repetitive pattern. Anne-Kirsti finds that the variations in colour blends make the work come alive.

The repetitive pattern kept the weaving process within a simple system, and she could concentrate on mixing colours. Each blend she added, changed the overall expression, and so it went on and on. The title came with the idea, at the very start. So, for this tapestry, both title and sketch were guides for her weaving.