Anya Molyviatis

Name: Anya Molyviatis

Pronouns: she/her

Studio location: Austin, Texas

Website / social links: anyamolyviatis.com, @anyamolyviatis

Loom type or tool preference: AVL Dobby Loom 40-harness

Years weaving: 5

Fiber inclination: Mohair and Cotton

Current favorite weaving book: Always the Rio Grande Textiles by Nora Fisher

Contact information for commissions and collaborations: email address

 

 

1. How did you discover weaving and was what your greatest resource as a beginner?

My journey into weaving began with my love for architecture and materiality. I grew up in an artistic family, so art naturally became a language for communication, but my passion for architectural spaces and color theory always brought me to design. I started my first year of university in 2014 at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. During this period, I was asking myself questions about how urban design and city planning affects our experiences of environments, and humanity more broadly. How can our relationships to the environments we surround ourselves with can reveal the power of our senses? What does it mean to design spaces that prioritize the reality that we are deeply sensitive, perceptive beings? How can we symbiotically live with the natural world?

After a year in Manhattan, I decided to take a semester off to take a NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) course to understand natural ecosystems and environmental science. I spent 90 days living in the Rocky Mountains. This experience was a pivotal point in my life as I learned the to tap into the power of our senses when we really tune into the environments around us. This concept has gone on to underpin much of my artistic work to-date. I took my experience from NOLS and realized I needed to pursue architecture.

At that point in time, I thought it offered the perfect combination of disciplines to develop and research my design concepts. I spent the latter half of 2015 as a long-term apprentice at Cal-Earth Institute in Hesperia, CA learning about super adobe construction, materiality, and permaculture design. It was during this period that I started to get my first insights into the fiber world. My curiosity began to grow as I learned that materiality was the foundation of design.

I started diving into research about fibers, and this really opened a new world up for me. As my apprenticeship came to an end, I had planned to pursue another apprenticeship in architecture in Taos, New Mexico, but I had a three-month gap in between the two programs. I decided to go to New Mexico early and work and that is when I became surrounded by weaving. I spent those next three months reading, going to weaving studios, and learning about the local fibers and dye processes, which ultimately let me decide that instead of pursuing my architecture program, I was going to do a weaving apprenticeship. In 2016 I became the apprentice of Master Weaver Brook Hemmenway where I learned techniques in traditional southwest tapestry making and my weaving journey began!

My greatest resources at the beginning were truly to be immersed in a textile culture. New Mexico’s traditional tapestries were an inspiration as they were intimately linked to the landscape. The dyes came from the same local places, and the yarn was specific to this region. I felt like I was holding the natural landscape in my palms, pulling me into an intimate experience with the natural world.

My other greatest resource was my teacher, Brook. I would spend hours in her studio with her daily, and she connected me with the local yarn distributors, taught me the entire cycle of resourcing locally and sustainably. The power of working with a community has stayed with me since.

2. How do you define your practice – do you consider yourself an artist / craftsperson / weaver / designer / general creative or a combination of those? Is this definition important to you?

I consider myself an artist and designer through the craft and practice of weaving.

It is important to me that I embrace both art and design, given that I am uniting a multitude of concepts and mediums into a weaving narrative. There are various stages in my production, and holding these titles helps me open the conversation to clearly express the vision and passion I have. I blur the lines in my work between art, design, and craft, partly because the disciplinary boundaries are artificially constructed, and partly because to me, they all hold a sacred union with each other.

3. Describe your first experience with weaving.

My first experience was challenging in the sense that it was hard to find an apprenticeship in weaving. When Brook Hemmenway took me in, I was overjoyed! The first moment I touched her loom I knew this was “it.” I know it sounds cliche, but at this point, I had explored various careers and practices that when I started to weave, my feeling for it was so natural and intense that it was unlike any other experience I had ever encountered. I almost felt like I was united with a long-lost version of myself.

When I started weaving, I felt that everything I was looking for fell into place on this machine. I knew this was how I could channel my energies and give back to the world. Since that day, I’ve never stopped weaving. My passion is fueled by my deep belief that textiles have the power to change the way we understand the world for the better of humanity and the nonhuman world.

4. What is your creative process, from the initial idea to the finished piece? Are there specific weave structures, looms, or fibers that are important to your process?

Yes, yes, and yes! My process since I first started weaving has been one long refining arch in visualizing and exploring my concepts of design and art. In my current body of work, Waffle Gradients, my focus is to push weaving structures into three-dimensional textiles as a form of fiber wallscape. They are the first stages of exploring the potential of three-dimensional weaving for an interior space.

This is where my materials become important; these weavings are made with mohair and cotton. With the mohair, I can blend and create my gradients in the weft and with cotton, I can add optical effects through ikat dying techniques in my warps to further push the dimensionality of my textiles. Between the mohair and the crochet cotton, my textiles are bound by tiny strings that almost look like light rays. When they meet, they create dense soft sculptures that have a nurturing quality to them.

As for looms, I exclusively work on digital AVL Dobby looms. As I mentioned, my mind is very design-focused and therefore these machines suited me as they allowed me to push the boundaries of textile structures. In my studio, I operate a 40 harness 60” AVL Dobby Loom and a 24 harness 20” AVL Dobby Loom. These are the only machines I use to create my work. These looms are so spectacular that I tell people that I am a mechanic, weaver, and organ player all at once.

With AVL dobby looms you can create unique complex weaving structures. For my series Waffle Gradients, I’ve created my own large waffle structure pattern that subtly changes size in a repeat. With my 40-harness loom, I can achieve waffles with depths that reach thicknesses of 3 – 4 inches. All my weaving structures focus on three-dimensional creating, as of now, I feel I’m still tapping into waffle structure research. I don’t see myself leaving this pattern any time soon, but I know it will evolve.

Finally, I plan out my designs in different ways. For commissions, I create digital color renderings to give a visual to my clients. In my own body of work, it is a more intimate approach. I begin with a garden of mohair sprawled around my studio. Slowly I start to organize the colors into feelings. I group them into bundles and let them sit and watch their color relationships. Sometimes this can take months, with slight adjustments little by little. Once I feel that I need to see this as a piece, I know the design is finalized. Afterward, I start planning the warp. In this process, I do color tests with my reactive dyes and ideate the optical design in the warp. Once I have the entire piece planned, I begin to set it up. The preparation for each piece is 85%-90% of the entire process. These pieces embody deep emotions and sensations that I want to be surrounded by and nested in. They exist to heal, stimulate, and become sensory experiences.

 5. Does your work have a conceptual purpose or greater meaning? If so, do you center your making around these concepts?

Absolutely, my entire body of work focuses on revealing the power of our senses. Within this, I tackle themes in environmental awareness, mental health, interactive design, and color theory. The goal of my artistic career is to open urban environments into a new form of exploration for the potential of humanity.

 

6. What is your favorite part of the weaving process and why? What’s your least favorite?

This is a difficult answer because I truly love it all. I don’t think I would embark on a weaving career if I didn’t love every part of it.

My favorite aspect of weaving is turning threads into animated pieces. I feel like a spider working only inches away from my work and never seeing the entire web until it’s complete. I love watching the tight threads move across my gigantic machine. I also find organizing relaxing. It is very satisfying to bring thousands of threads into perfect order, to bring colors into harmony––the entire process is meditative and insightfully teaches me about staying in the present moment even when problems arise.

7. Do you sell your work or make a living from weaving? If so, what does that look like and how has that affected your studio practice?

I feel tremendously grateful to say that I do sell my work and make a living from weaving! It is challenging, and no one can ever prepare you for the amount of work you have to do outside of weaving. I’m still very early in my career, and only finished my BA in fibers in May 2021.

Since then, I moved to Austin, TX, set up a studio, found looms, worked on commissions, and have been featured in various exhibitions. This last year has been an extremely large learning curve, but I am finally settling in. I’ve never owned dobby looms before, so previously, I always felt a hint of stress about needing to create as much as possible during the limited time I had access to them. A few weeks ago, it hit me that I finally own all these machines myself! It feels good to be moving into a new phase of energy in my creating process.

I am also still figuring out my studio routine. As an artist, each week changes, especially in these early stages. My studio and home are a shared space, which has its challenges and perks! I am a very disciplined and self-motivated person, so I do work 6 – 10 hours in my studio a day which I love. But it is important to acknowledge that when you are your own boss, you also must set boundaries to avoid workaholism, and I do have trouble turning my work brain off, so I often end up working much longer hours.

One of my biggest challenges working with digital looms is understanding the technical parts of them. My looms are older, so they constantly need maintenance. Unlike most crafts, AVL looms are niche, so you cannot count on YouTube or internet forums to save the day. So, it is safe to say that the AVL company team knows me well now!

8. Where do you find inspiration?

In nature, always. I find inspiration in the present moments.

9. What other creatives do you admire – weavers, artists, entrepreneurs – and why?

So many! We live in a world with extremely talented individuals, so it is hard not to be inspired by the amazing achievements they bring! To name a few of my recent inspirations, I am in awe of Lauren Bowker’s Unseen Lab, Rachel Rose’s video installations, Apres Ski’s sustainable clothing line, Lea Mestres’s light sculptures, Xanthe Somers’s ceramic works, NONG RAK apparel, Jeffrey Gibson, Polly Wales’s Jewelry, the photography of Chou Mo, and JB Blunk’s woodwork. I love creative inspiration that is fun, organic, and innovative. I think each one of these creatives reveals a lightness and story to everyday objects and experiences in our lives. They immerse you into a world and allow you to be involved. Each one stands out even more when surrounded by the other. Humans are incredible, in the way we give to the world. It’s beautifully romantic.

10. If you could no longer weave, what would you do instead?

This is a difficult question for two reasons. Firstly, because weaving is my form of giving to a humanity that is bigger than me. The drive behind my work comes from believing that materials can change the way we experience the world.

Secondly, if I couldn’t weave, I love too many other crafts and artforms equally to choose one! Outside of weaving, I sew all my own clothes, create jewelry, garden, construct lights, fix/upholster furniture…the list goes on and on! If I had the time, my entire house, garden, and interior would be made by me. I’m not too far from being there minus the built house.

My final answer would have to fall into a different field completely. My second passion is the ocean. I feel more comfortable swimming than walking. If I had to turn my back from weaving, I would enter the world as a free diver, marine archeologist, oceanographer, or ocean activist.

Do you have any upcoming exhibits, talks, or events the community should know about?

I just finished a round of exhibitions, so I am strictly working on a new body of work and talking to a few galleries for exhibits this year/next year. I am very active on Instagram and keep my website up to date with all the events. Stay tuned!