40 by 21 inches (Fire in the Mountain, left)
28 by 29 inches (Wild Fire, right)
Wool warp, wool and silk weft
I began "Fire in the Mountain" with the working title "Red in Blue," inspired by the colors of the wool yarns I inherited from my teacher and mentor, the late Swiss tapestry weaver Silvia Heyden. As the reds came to life on the loom I thought to look up the I Ching trigrams for fire and mountain: Hexagram 22 Beauty, fire inside mountain. The commentary states that fire breaks out of secret depths of the earth and blazing up illuminates and beautifies the mountain that shapes and contains it; beauty of form is necessary for something to be well ordered and pleasing rather than disordered and chaotic. These words resonated with Silvia's teaching!
Later, as destructive wild fires burned near my home in 2017 and 2018, I looked up the reverse hexagram, fire rising away from mountain: Hexagram 56 Wanderer. The mountain endures, heavy, solid and sinking; the fire, rising uncontained, flashes across it and departs, leaving destruction, desolation and exile.
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