Night Tapestries: Insomnia Somnium Artwork

Skimming Stars Like Pebbles: Hand Woven Lullaby; The name I have given to my tapestries collectively, for each I write a story, tales of night, dreams and skies. A Lullaby relates to these subjects, but the etymology meaning ‘soft goodbye’ harks to the softness of textiles, simultaneously the quiet character of these tapestries. The tapestries are woven by hand, in a manner where process is paramount and becomes highly symbolic. Therefore, the works are artefacts of this rather than existing to voice a depiction of a notion. As the title of this piece describes, these tapestries were woven at night. During spells of insomia, and when I woke between dreams is when I would begin to weave this piece. I wanted to see how this altered state of mind would influence a piece of work, especially the imagery, so I left this aspect to improvisation. What I often found was upon waking the next day I couldn't decipher between an image I had seen in a dream and one that I wove that previous night.