Following 14 weeks as Camera Obscura Art Lab’s Resident Artist, Tracy Bromwich hosted a capstone exhibit showcasing the works she made during her tenure as a resident on Saturday, July 30. Bromwich is a weaver, architect and more, and displayed works she wove from hand-dyed thread alongside a number of works created in the workshops she hosted throughout her residency.
Her major project on display, on which she worked during the entirety of her 14 week tenure, was titled The Forty-Yard Weave. For this project, Bromwich painted watercolors at Palisades and Tongva parks, then took colors from those paintings and hand-dyed 960 threads she then wove into fabrics.
“It was 10 pounds of pima cotton, which is grown in the Central Valley, so it’s a fairly local yarn,” said Bromwich. “The idea for the project was to capture something about a local yarn.”
She explained that Tongva Park in particular includes a lot of native plants, so the colors in the park, and therefore in her works, are colors native to the area.
In addition to her Forty-Yard Weave, Bromwich included examples from many of her workshops, as well as materials for visitors to her exhibit to create new works themselves, including pot holders, friendship bracelets and materials for watercolors.
Some of Bromwich’s workshops included natural yarn dyeing, potato printing, dyeing silk scarves with Kool-Aid, solar printing onto tote bags, ice dyeing and indigo dyes.
“We did a couple workshops on an indigo dye tote bag,” Bromwich said. “I brought in a couple things I dyed with indigo.”
Many of those at the exhibit knew Bromwich from past workshops, and were happy to both reminisce about their past works and inquire about her own techniques as an artist.
For more information about the Camera Obscura Art Lab and upcoming workshops and exhibits, visit Camera Obscura’s Facebook page.
