A collection of silk scarves woven by Edna Del Zoppa.-Winston SillGeorgia Hemmings, Staff Reporter
HER FIRST solo exhibition in Jamaica is proving to be a thrilling and exciting experience for Edna Del Zoppa.
This is her first show in her "adopted" Jamaica, which she has been visiting for the last 13 years. But, more importantly, it is an opportunity for her to display loom-woven textiles which she has been working on as a professional weaver.
A Canadian by birth, Miss Del Zoppa is a visiting instructor in the Textile Department at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts (EMCVPA),
Her association with Jamaica began in 1990, when she and her husband visited on a vacation. But, on subsequent visits, her desire to explore links with Jamaican weavers led her to the EMCVPA and a meeting with Patricia Kentish-Skeete, head of the Textile Department.
At the end of that first meeting, Miss Del Zoppa also an author of several books on weaving was invited to teach her craft at the college, an invitation she accepted with alacrity.
Her first teaching session was in 1998, and she returned in 2000. This year marks her third in what has become a regular springtime activity conducted from January to May.
Apart from providing a much-needed respite from the harsh Canadian winter, the "spring break" allows Miss Del Zoppa to impart information about an ancient craft which she has
mastered.
"I began my formal weaving education with a basic course at the School of Art Institute in Chicago in 1969," she told The Sunday Gleaner. "And, over the years, I have supplemented my development with various workshops and seminars."
In 1980, she began working part-time as a demonstrator of looms for Icelandic Imports and Exports (Canada) Limited, importers of Swedish Glimakra looms. The Glimakra is a traditional Scandinavian loom with an overhead beater and a counterbalance (or countremarche)
shed-changing system.
Having worked on three other styles of floor looms, as well as table models, Miss Del Zoppa's experience served her well in demonstrations at trade fairs, craft shops and weavers' conference which was a large part of her job, as well as assisting new loom owners in assembling their
equipment.
In 1981, she decided to take an intensive course in the damask technique.
"A damask loom is a regular floor loom with extra capacity and effects to do a particular kind of weaving," she explains to The Sunday Gleaner.
WOVEN IMAGES
Having mastered this technique, Miss Del Zoppa has divided her time between the countremarche loom and the damask loom, with increasing emphasis on the latter.
Soon she began exploring the possibility of designing for damask on a computer. This led her to approach the CAD-CAM centre at the University College in Cape Breton, Canada. The result was the development and publication of a computer-design programme called "Grid-craft".
As Miss Del Zoppa explains, the programme is "specifically oriented to any craft person who designs on graph paper, regardless of the craft medium."
Working out of her studio in Nova Scotia, Canada, Miss Del Zoppa now produces a limited line of silk scarves, shawls, commissioned items (such as table linens for the Nova Scotia Department of Tourism and Culture, and linen altar cloths for the St. Mary's Anglican Church in Glace Bay), and fabric with images woven into them.
"And I've gone a step further and framed some of these fabrics as works of art," Miss Del Zoppa disclosed.
These loom-woven textiles feature predominantly at the exhibition which opened last Thursday at the Revolution Gallery on Chelsea Avenue in New Kingston.
Titled A Point of View, the show comprises 24 framed pieces and a collection of silk scarves and shawls, which are also up for sale.
The weaver points out that "damask and silk are iridescent and reflective material, manipulating light as few other medium. In my pieces, shadows and images move in and out, depending on where one is standing. For in art (as in life), where you are standing can influence what you see."
While noting that weaving is non-traditional in Jamaica, she hopes that viewers will be "sufficiently stimulated" to acquire knowledge about the craft.
"In fact, it is my long-term dream that more students at the EMCVPA will become interested in and major in weaving, thus providing more practitioners and teachers of the craft to generate a larger following. Weaving is a craft that can be pursued at either a recreational or functional level," she explains.
Her teaching contract runs through to May, then she returns to full-time activities in Canada.
A Point of View exhibition continues at the gallery through to March 27 and viewing hours are 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday to Friday, and, on Saturday, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
