Tommye Scanlin

20 - Tommye McClure Scanlin—On Teaching, Learning & Tapestry by Vivian Liddell

Tommye McClure Scanlin on the relationship between her paintings and her tapestries:

I’m not trying to replicate this painting… but I’m trying to be inspired by it… or informed in some ways about the kinds of things that I saw when I made the painting. I’ve done several—I think it’s four pieces now, this is either the 4thor the 5th—where the background is essentially white, even though it’s not really white. It’s—you know—natural color and light gray and bleached white and thin threads and thick threads. But one of the things that one of my tapestry teachers pointed out is that if a weaver wants to place a shape in a field of white, the weaver has to make the field of white. You can’t—like a painter could paint a leaf on a white canvas and there would be the leaf—well I’m kind of getting a similar effect except I’m having to make the background as I’m making the positive.

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