Woven Worlds
- reflection from the studio

I unlock the door to the studio and walk over to my workstation. I hang the thread scissors with a cord around my neck and tuck a bent fork into the neckline of my sweater. From my office chair, I can glide back and forth along the 2.5-metre weaving frame I’m currently working on. I’m weaving something to stand on. Around me lie piles of yarn in different combinations of green and brown. A kind of jumble of the ground beneath feets in an undefined forest, beneath low-growing plants, blades of grass and other bits of undergrowth. A base layer.

In my work, I explore virtual materials and the construction of virtual places through weaving. I draw on PBS (physically based rendering), a technique used to create photorealistic digital environments. Through photographs of real materials, objects and plants, digital surfaces are built up from layers of textures that simulate gloss, height and other physical properties. Of course, these digital worlds are not intended to be woven in all their qualities. But the similarity between pixels and the resolution of a woven surface has brought me here, and now I find myself sitting with the height of bark, the shapes of leaves and the contours of branches through an interplay between digital systems and craft. In the weave, I touch every pixel. Working with deadstock yarn, I piece things together and join fragments, engaging in a kind of world-building in which the photorealistic illusion gives way to material availability and interpretation. With each new tapestry, the systematic logic of 3D materials accumulates around me in the studio.