Mother Earth Weaving on and EarthLoom With Her Children
Mother Earth is shown with three of her children on her head, weaving on an EarthLoom, a concept that was originated by Susan Barrett Merrill. A colorful forest and sunset sky are behind them, and the loom is warped and has actual weaving on it, of natural black and Merrill's madder-dyed handspun yarn. Mother Earth is kind and calm, with her headdress forming a kind of glorious bonnet.
The face is handwoven in Merrill's Zati method with natural gray Maine island wool, with natural brown handspun island wool eyebrows, and natural brown island ram's wool for hair. The face, as always, is felted onto the wet-felted headdress of black merino wool with a high folded back. Layered over it is a white wet-felted merino cowl, with the scene felted onto it, surrounded by a flaming corona of madder-dyed merino. The whole is outlined in black and white handspun twined border, giving a chain effect. Surrounding the front edge of the cowl is a colorful Bolivian-style round-weave outline with fringed ends.
The loom is made of birch twigs which Merrill cut, drilled and pinned together post-and-beam-style with tiny wooden pegs. It is warped with linen, with a red center thread, and woven with madder and goldenrod-dyed handspun and natural black. The figures are wrapped and wet-felted merino with wire armatures, and dressed in colorful merino garments. The figure at the left is wearing a bodice of a round of Merrill's miniaturized colonial coverlet weaving in cotton and bamboo threads. The center mother figure has two black braids tied together, and a colorful handwoven cotton bodice with fringed warp ends. The figure at right has a high pointed goldenrod-dyed merino hat and a necklace of turquoise beads with a center bead of antique Tibetan silver.