Artist Statement
My Fiber Art
Susan Barrett Merrill
I am a weaver who creates fiber sculptural masks, based on a technique given to me in a dream. My work is intuitive. I don’t preconceive designs; I look at the colors and textures of yarns I have spun from Maine island sheep and dyed with plants from my garden. As I begin to work, I arrive at some comfort with a visual rhythm or a color combination and that begins to influence the development of the design. As I continue, repetition in basic patterns may play out, or a variation that feels right at a certain point in the process of building the face. The finished face is a mystery waiting to show itself in three dimensions.
Susan Barrett Merrill's Textile Sculpture for Purchase
Weaving a Life
The inner life is like the vertical warp on a loom. The weft of our daily acts weave through our inner values and beliefs with each moment. The warp in a tapestry is hidden beneath the weft, but it is the warp that provides the inner strength to the fabric. Our inner being provides the strong guiding threads on which the pattern of our lives is woven.
Susan combines her expertise as a hand weaver and creativity coach to offer leadership training in the Weaving a Life process for those who wish to teach this process in their own communities.
Working with our hands to weave on a handheld Journey EarthLoom®, we align with our values in a process of recognizing, receiving, and living in harmony with our own deepest truths.
What You Experience With Weaving a Life
First we connect the vertical threads of our body from Earth to sky. The horizontal threads are woven with every thought and movement in and out of time, day and night as we live our lives. When you feel those colors and that fabric emerging whole, forming under your fingers, you begin to understand your own real nature, empowering you to choose again, to experience a new perspective as you create. Weaving a Life is a personal process for revealing the vision and gifts you already hold inside.