In a spacious, light-filled Manhattan atelier, members of the Scheuer Tapestry Studio work with quiet precision, ten floors and 450 years away from the clamor below. Seated at billboard-size vertical looms, plying yarns color by color and pick by pick, they create wool murals in the French Gobelins manner, as generations of weavers have done before them.
“This is a system that has been perfected over the centuries," says director Ruth Scheuer, as she demonstrates the intricate hachures, or hatchings, that form finely feathered gradations and shadings. The 15th-century Unicorn Tapestries, which hang in the Cluny Museum in Paris and the Cloisters in New York City, were woven by the same methods Scheuer has adopted.
Despite its venerable history, tapestry has never been held in the same regard as painting. “My aim," says Scheuer, “is to elevate contemporary tapestry to the status of fine art. The problem is that it has been used as a secondary art form since the Middle Ages." Although weavers could improvise backgrounds, figures had to be woven from paintings. And, beginning with Raphael's “Acts of the Apostles" in 1519, most weavers were bound entirely to the painted cartoon. As Scheuer points out, the Renaissance that followed was no creative rebirth for tapestry weavers. “They were considered technicians who merely translated the work of painters into the medium of fiber."
While Scheuer, 33, is highly skilled, her work can’t be considered in terms of technique alone. Mixing yarn and thread as a painter would mix paint, Scheuer and the weavers she has trained create tactile, brilliantly hued wall hangings—larger-than- life floral motifs, urban landscapes, and richly detailed narratives—in which image and surface are luminously one. “Weaving the canvas" is how she describes it.
“When I started weaving, I was discouraged from doing the representational imagery that interested me because of the difficulty of the medium. I was wrestling with it constantly," says Scheuer, whose background in drawing and painting led to a bachelor of fine arts degree in weaving from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1974 and to a master of arts degree in tapestry from San Francisco State University in 1977. “Learning to weave in the Gobelins manner has given me the freedom to create sophisticated imagery closer to my drawing."
Learning the tapestry techniques—To achieve creative freedom, Scheuer studied first with Jean-Pierre Larochett^ with whom she and two other weavers founded the San Francisco Tapestry Workshop in 1976. Three years later, she traveled to Paris to study at the Manufacture Royale des Gobelins, a state-run atelier founded in 1662 during the reign of Louis XIV. Once the source of tapestries for the court, the manufactory today produces hangings for public buildings throughout France.
In the San Francisco atelier, a teaching workshop, which executed commissions for such artists as Mark Adams and Judy Chicago, Scheuer worked in the low-warp Aubusson style she learned from Laro- chette. She wove on a horizontal loom that resembles a two-harness floor loom without the reed and beater, alternating sheds with treadles and weaving the image from the back. The precisely detailed cartoon pinned beneath the warp allowed the weaver precious little room for interpretation. “It was," Scheuer says, “like weaving by number." Feeling confined by the technique, she moved to Paris to study at the Gobelins atelier, where she hoped to find greater opportunity for creative growth. There, in a historic setting, where tapestries designed by such painters as Watteau and Ingres were once woven, Scheuer discovered there was more to tapestry than she had seen up to that point.
In the Gobelins technique, Scheuer worked at a high-warp, or vertical, loom with the cartoon traced onto the warp threads instead of pressed against them from below. As in the Aubusson method, she wove the image from the back. But with a mirror hung at the back of the loom, Scheuer was able to see the front of the tapestry. For the first time, she could watch the image develop as she wove. Although her pace was slowed by having to pull heddles by hand instead of using treadles to make the alternating sheds, she rejoiced at the creative freedom inherent in the format. “The weaver, instead of being a technician for reproduction, could make aesthetic decisions.”
Still required to reproduce predetermined images, Scheuer continued to learn additional techniques for interpreting the cartoon. A type of hatching called looped hachure (see p. 53), for example, offered a much more subtle interaction of color than any other she had ever seen. And the double-weft interlock technique, in which adjacent colors are twisted around each other on every row, made a clean, crisp vertical join (see p. 54). “The exciting thing was learning to have control over the process so I could forget about it," she says.
A place of her own-In 1982, after nearly a year of intensive training, Scheuer set up her own studio in the heart of Greenwich Village. She paid $400,000 for the duplex space and one quarter of that again to outfit the two levels. On the studio’s tenth floor are two workrooms and a stainless- steel dye kitchen. A conference room and an office are in a smaller upstairs apartment. In the front workroom, a vast spectrum of yarns is carefully arranged in groups of floor-to-ceiling shelves by hue, shade, and tint. There are hundreds of colors, some twisted in ropy skeins, some wound on giant spools.
Equally impressive are the studio's five 8-ft.-high oak-and-mahogany looms, each holding work in progress. They range in width from 5 ft. to 9 ft., and Scheuer is anticipating the arrival of a 12-ft.-wide model. Custom-built by John Shannock, of Vancouver, WA, for an average price of $3,900 each, the looms differ in one important respect from their French counter-parts: Aubusson-like treadles operate the heddles. As the weaving progresses, the weaver, who sits on an adjustable-height drafting stool, can rise comfortably with the work by raising the treadles in a grooved track.
“The French loommakers said it couldn't be done,” chuckles Scheuer, who's delighted with the way Shannock was able to soup up the looms for American efficiency while maintaining their old-world character. In addition, the hybrid loom takes up very little floor space.
Weavers who visit the studio are amazed by the size of the operation. “They often don’t realize that to start any kind of business you need capital," says Scheuer, who expects to break even in two or three years. Lest other weavers be frightened off, she points out that a smaller operation, particularly if it were cooperatively maintained, would require much less capital, even in Manhattan, and still less anywhere else in the country.
Twenty-five works have come from the studio's looms since the first warp went on in April of 1982. Scheuer tries to balance corporate commissions, which provide a substantial portion of the studio's income, with speculative works so that she and the studio weavers can grow creatively as well as financially. Museum shows have encouraged them to experiment while bringing their work to a wider public. “Tapestries have advantages that other art forms don't," Scheuer notes. They insulate and soak up noise, imparting softness to the hard marble or concrete surfaces in modern buildings. “And they’ve always been a show of weal th,” she adds.
The apprentice system—A tapestry from the Scheuer studio requires several months to complete. The average price of $6,000 for a 4-ft. by 7-ft. work is figured from a square-foot charge of $175 to $225, depending on the design’s complexity.
To keep prices reasonable and to complete the eight to ten commissions a year that keep the studio viable, Scheuer, who frequently spends her ten-hour workdays dealing with the business end of the operation, has sought others who are interested in pursuing tapestry as a profession. “You can’t do this kind of work by yourself. Doing large-scale tapestry in fine- weave detail takes a lot of people,” she says. So she relies on apprentices who, ideally, will become capable studio weavers.
Since the inception of a September-to- May program three years ago, twelve weavers have apprenticed at the studio. Scheuer recently modified her system and now limits new apprentices to three every other year. She adheres to her original format, however. In the first half of their nine-month term, the apprentices receive training on small, individual looms in exchange for doing odd jobs around the studio. In the second half, they work on studio projects under supervision. The nomoney-exchanged arrangement, which meets Department of Labor standards, benefits both director and apprentice. “I pay them for the work; they pay me for the training,” says Scheuer. Best of all, the weavers have jobs at the end of the program.
Scheuer has been able to hire every apprentice who has wanted to stay on. There are currently ten weavers. First-year weavers receive $6 per hour, with bonuses when they complete a piece. Their salaries rise by $1 an hour each year. Scheuer chose to pay by the hour, rather than by the piece. “We are trying to emphasize fine quality, and when I have to tell someone to take something out, if it’s at her expense, she tends to hurry. It's better for me to spend more because I can’t sell bad work for any amount of money. Besides, I hope this is going toward training a good weaver who will stay on and do a better job next time.” Scheuer knows the average yearly wage of $14,000 is low, but the weavers have access to the looms and studio space at no cost.
Working as a group-Scheuer thinks of the studio as her baby, but having recently had one of her own, she has willingly relinquished control of key jobs to three senior weavers. Beverly Godfrey is responsible for most of the studio’s day-to-day activities, Mary Lane supervises the apprentices, and Joyce Hulbert does the custom-dyeing and assists Scheuer in making presentations to clients.
“To be making a living from weaving is a great feeling,” says Godfrey, 28, who has been with the studio since the beginning. Her earnings may be meager by New York standards, but she says she has never been happier. ‘‘I’m growing constantly.”
While collective growth often supersedes individual development—two and three weavers work side by side on a piece—God-frey feels the collaborative process provides an important learning experience. “To keep consistency in a tapestry, each weaver works in one area, but we interact all the time. We show each other what we are doing, sample yarn combinations around our fingers, inspire each other, and then fit our sections together like a puzzle. We can tell where one weaver’s work ends and another’s begins, but no one else can.”
Joyce Hulbert, 27, also sees the studio as an educational experience. She studied textile technology at the University of North Carolina in Raleigh and worked in the dye division of CIBA-Geigy in Greensboro before coming to the studio 212 years ago. ‘‘I’m here to develop my technique.”
Does she ever feel constrained? “Sure,” she answers without hesitation. “You start putting things into your own terms as you begin to get competent, so it’s sometimes hard to work within the limits of the group.” But she feels she always has a voice in aesthetic decisions. “Ruth is the owner, she calls the shots, but we have a whole lot to say.”
Hulbert expects to eventually strike out on her own. “That’s why we take on new apprentices. The studio is not static. People are going to change and grow.” What attracted her, and what attracts others, is the belief that they can make an artistic statement through tapestry. “We came into this project with the belief that we could do something momentous,” says Hulbert. “We’re getting there.”
