Chloé Chagnaud

Name: Chloé Chagnaud / La Tòrna

Studio location: Saint-Etienne, France

Website / social links: la-torna.com, @latornatissage

Loom type or tool preference: four pedal handcrafted loom (1974)

Years weaving: 8

Fiber inclination: Linen, hemp, nettle, cotton, wool & silk bourette

Current favorite weaving book: Le tissage à la main by Pierre Ryall

 

 

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

Before learning weaving, I had a sewing practice for two years. I was mostly making accessories with vintage Japanese Kasuri scraps. Kasuri is a technique of resist-dyeing fibers for weaving, very close to Ikat.  

I was fascinated by these woven materials and began to collect ethnic fabrics like Kente from West Africa. As a child, I was surrounded by textiles that my mother collected from her travels. I started doing the same. I went to North India and discovered some handwoven fabrics with beautiful patterns and colors. This made me realize I wanted to create my own fabrics to make my sewing works more personal. 

When I shared my ideas about weaving with my relatives, I found out that my boyfriend’s grandmother had her own practice in the 70’s/80’s. She had kept her loom made by her son and I inherited it. That was a great resource and a trigger to start learning weaving.  

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?

The genesis of my work is always about weaving so first of all, I consider myself a weaver. I don‘t create anything else without my loom so this definition might be important. And secondly, a craftswoman, which include the sewing part.

3. Describe your first experience with weaving.

My first experience with weaving was during a one week internship with Odile Chevallier, a weaver who lives in the countryside near Saint Etienne. I remember being overwhelmed while assembling my first warp. There were so many precise and meticulous informations which required an intense concentration, like particular knots, threading the threads through the stringers…  

Despite all of that, this first experience was really exciting. Learning new techniques is always good, it gives a new impetus and some great energy. I cherish these moments.   

That is also where I weaved my first weft. It was a bit ugly but I kept it. 

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?

The first step of my creative process is to decide what the warp will be for: cushions, clutches, wall-hangings … Then, I can choose the dimensions, the type of fibers and threading.   

I draw sketches for patterns and do a lots of calculations working with the ‘Brochet’ technique, where patterns are inserted into the weaving in addition to the weft thread.  

I have some favorite patterns for a period of time that I like to decline in different color combinations.   

Colors play an important role in my creative process. They break the regularity on long warps, and I always find new associations that inspire me. I mostly use cotton and linen for the warp, and linen, wool, silk, hemp and nettle for the weft. When a warp is on the loom, I get obsessed with it and it becomes the goal to achieve. I do weaving sessions followed by sewing sessions. 

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

I focus my practice around the idea of using an ancestral weaving process, totally manual. The manual loom is like a time traveller which remained intact.  

Time is an important element in manual weaving. Slow made is a choice, in accordance with a way of life, even if making a living from it can sometimes be stressful. It’s about finding a balance.  

I also like the idea that this activity engages the whole body. It becomes fully active during the weaving process, like a part of the machine. 

Regarding the finished pieces, I like them to be physically and mentally useful. By being in someone's pocket or warming the interior of a house, they become part of the daily life. I often see handmade objects as quiet entities which can have a therapeutic action on people. My customers often tell me the positive effects my weavings have on them and that fills me.  

 

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

My favorite part of the weaving process is when I know that no mistakes were made on a new warp’s set up, which means it is ready to be woven for the coming days.    

Least favorite is when the warp gets tighter and tighter when it is close to the end, when I don’t have enough warp to finish something or when a thread breaks on the warp!  

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 sell my work and make a living from it since I have created my brand La Tòrna in 2014, nine months after my intership.  

I sell online, do some custom orders as well as deposit sales in designers or concept stores. I also participate to creators markets, textile fairs and Pop-up events with craftspeople and designers. As my studio is also my home, my practice is quite solitary and sedentary. That’s why I really enjoy taking part in theses events.  

8. Where do you find inspiration?

I find inspiration in every day life, nature, textiles, objects, architecture, design…But fibers and colors can simply be very inspiring. I like to work with hemp, linen and nettle. Their shades and textures are magical. There is so much richness in natural fibers and each of them has its own identity.

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

I truly admire the social and politic tapestries of Hannah Ryggen, a Swedish-born Norwegian textile artist (1894-1970). She lived on a farm on the remote Norwegian coast, dyed her yarn from local plants she gathered herself and wove on a homemade loom.  

I also love the work of  women weavers from the Bauhaus such as Gunta Stölzl and Anni Albers. The weaving class was the only one that women were allowed to attend in the Bauhaus school because of gender discrimination. Despite the limitations imposed on women, it became the Bauhaus’s most commercially successful sector as well as the most collaborative and audaciously experimental workshop!   

Finally, I admire and support all contemporary weavers. The community is small but of great wealth!  

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

Maybe a florist or I would do something related to plants, like natural dye.

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

Every summer I exhibit on an island called Porquerolles in the south of France. The exhibition will be from the 12th to the 18th of July 2021.  I might also participate to a weavers market in the village of Saint Thélo in Bretagne from the 6th to the 8th of August 2021.