Line Dufour: tapestry and textiles: Purple

Left to right: Bambi Rutledge, Tina Patsourakos and Christine Shipley

A great week! Today several people helped out with the finishing of the international tapestry (Bambi, Christine and Jutta). Tina works for the Toronto District School Board in marketing for the Continuing Education division, took pictures, and interviewed students.

Jutta Polomski foreground, Michele Dubois background.

We're nearing completion of one panel and still have a second panel to do.

I was also very excited to cut off my section of the international tapestry project.....

the back.....

the front.......hmmm. I almost like the back better. It reminds of how chaotic and out of control life can be at times.

Below, more shapes that have come in to be a part of the international tapestry project. To date, 200 people and 22 countries have participated in this project. New ones are arriving daily.

Clare Coyle from Scotland, wove a shape in her favorite colour. Go to her Facebook page to see more of her work. https://www.facebook.com/clareccoyle

The colour purple was first used between 16000 and 25000BC by creating blending manganese and hematite and using this powder to draw and paint outlines of animals in caves found in France. A new source of purple was discovered around 1500BC in the area of Lebanon where an intense and rich purple was created from a the spiny dye-murex, a sea snail. The process of extracting the colour was long, precise and required thousands, maybe millions of these tiny snails. Consequently Tyrian purple became the dominant colour used for the garments, fashion accessories and textiles of kings, magistrates and priests in the Mediterranean and for hundreds of years it continued to be considered a colour that that conveyed high status. Mention of it appears in the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament, the Iliad by Homer, in the Odyssey. Alexander the Great was said to have worn Tyrian purple and King Solomon was said to have brought dyers from Tyre to create purple fabrics to embellish the Temple of Jerusalem. The colour purple continued to be associated with sacredness and authority throughout history. Charlemagne was crowned wearing a Tyrian purple mantle, and was also buried in a shroud of the same colour which still exists! In the middle ages and the Renaissance there was a decline by clergy in the wearing of purple garments due to its lack of availability at one point, but university professors of this period modeled their robes after those of the clergy , and employed this colour in their caps or robes. Purple was rarely worn by 'ordinary people' because of its prohibitive up until the 19th century. A British chemistry student by the name of William Henry Perkin produced the first synthetic aniline dye - mauve, which made it instantly fashionable and him a rich man.

Letitia Roller, Santa Fe New Mexico USA

http://www.letitiaroller.com/

Letty writes: " I love the idea of having three works related by design but executed in 3 different ways.....about 30 years ago I lived in the Kitchener Waterloo area and used to get to Toronto frequently...fond memories."