Emily Nicolaides

Name: Emily Nicolaides

Studio location: I’ve spent an amazing and transformative four years working out of the Elevator Collective in Richmond, Virginia. Now it’s time for a change, so I’m moving my studio to Limassol, Cyprus in July 2021!

Website / social links: EmilyNicolaides.com, The Open-Center Workshop, The Year of Circles, @emilynicolaides

Loom type or tool preference: Any kind of hoop or one of my custom built frame looms for round weavings

Years weaving: 8

Fiber inclination: Natural fibers are my go-to but sometimes I can’t resist a synthetic sparkle yarn

Current favorite weaving book: Shaped Tapestry Weaving by Kathe Todd-Hooker

 

 

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

My earliest memories of weaving are as a child when my Greek-Cypriot father would read my favorite bedtime story, Arachne and Athena. I loved the competition between goddess and mortal. I loved that the mortal woman won, even though she was cursed to be a spider forever(which honestly did not seem like a bad deal to me). I also loved the descriptions of yarn, looms, and ferocious throwing of shuttles. That story always stuck with me. So when I came across weaving again in college art history classes, something about it called to me.

Shortly after graduating, I took my first weaving workshop at Penland School of Craft. It was an invaluable experience to devote two whole weeks to learning how to weave and spending time around practicing artists. I wove 2 scarves and 4 placemats during that first workshop. It was everything I had imagined it would be as a child! I’m so grateful I was able to start weaving through such an immersive experience because it gave me the basic skills I needed to continue weaving at home. In addition, the experience showed me countless examples of professional artists making a living outside of traditional academia. So from the beginning, I knew that it was possible to have a career in 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?

First and foremost, I’m an artist.

Fiber art has long been seen as lesser in the art world. So by using the term “artist”, I see it as a way to honor thousands of years of weavers before me. Additionally, I never weave the same piece twice because my work is heavily driven by meaning. When I imagine the future of my practice, it involves weaving bigger and higher end work, not mass producing a few designs. I also love the freedom I have as an artist to grow, change, and pivot as creativity leads me. Artist is the best word I can think of to describe what I do.

3. Describe your first experience with weaving.

As I mentioned previously, I learned how to weave at Penland. On the first day of class, we learned how to dress the floor looms. I remember our instructor, Krishna Amin-Patel, talking about how weavers often have their assistants do this part of the process because it can feel like a chore. I was enthralled though! Something about calculating the measurements, counting and recounting, and then threading, tugging, and beating the warp felt so fucking good to me. It was slow, methodical, orderly, and made so much sense to me.

Then when we finally got to start weaving, I fell in love with watching the cloth grow with each throw of the shuttle. I loved the sounds and rhythms. I loved the conversation that happened over weaving. One day Krishna described her meditative process to us. How with every pass, she said a prayer. And through this process she created cloth full of meaning and intention. I thought that was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. So that was it. I was hooked.

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?

Learning how to tap into creative energy sustainably has taken me years to understand. As someone who struggles with manic depression, it’s imperative to my health that I exercise creativity everyday and not just in manic binges.

So I start everyday with journaling. Whether I’m dumping my brain per Julia Cameron’s process, journaling on a specific question, or simply making lists, the act of taking pen to paper helps clear my head. Then I meditate for 5 minutes to an hour depending on what feels good to me in the moment. These two practices ground me so that no matter how many different projects I’m juggling, I’m able to consistently tap into the creative flow.

For each project, I always start by determining shape, size, and color palette. I’m constantly exploring how to adapt traditional weaving patterns and techniques to fit the round format I love. So what I weave within the bounds of the chosen shape is constantly changing. One element that I can’t pull myself away from is having at least one metal ring in each piece. These rings allow me to create warps that radiate whether I’m weaving a circle, arch, or oval. I love the effect and challenge that this type of weaving presents.

Once the loom is warped and the colors are chosen, I weave in hour or two increments. I like to have lots of space around my actual weaving time to look and consider the direction a piece is headed. It makes an already slow process even slower, but for whatever reason, that’s how my brain works. And anyway, it allows me to keep up with multiple projects at a time.

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

I always felt this overwhelming duality as a child of an American and a Greek-Cypriot immigrant. All I wanted was to fit in, but I felt like I didn’t belong no matter what country I was in. Then in college I took a feminist art history class where I encountered fiber art as fine art for the first time. There was this moment when I realized that while my grandmothers didn’t speak the same language, they did have a common language of fiber art. You see, both my grandmothers made a point of teaching me knitting, crochet, sewing, and embroidery. They both wanted to share these processes with me as their mothers and grandmothers had shared them. It feels weird to say out loud, but that realization made me feel whole in a way I’d never experienced before.

After that, I started pursuing ways to explore fiber art more seriously which eventually led me to take that first weaving workshop. To this day, everytime I weave, I feel grounded and connected to the fabric of this ancient tradition. Being a part of this greater community of past, present, and future weavers makes me feel at home and wholly myself. Each piece I weave requires me to show up as my fullest baddest self so that I can tangibly express this rich communal energy through visual means.

 

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

I LIVE for the creative flow. There's this time in between starting and ending a piece where the colors, patterns, and creativity unfolds naturally. It's this effortless space where the yarns have already been selected, the shape planned, and all I have to do is surrender to my own creative energy. These moments are what keep me coming back to weaving again and again.

Now my least favorite part of the process is… starting. I have to push myself through the starting phase every single time, but it’s always worth it to get to the state of flow.

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 still pinch myself everyday that I've been able to make a living as an artist over the past two years. It's an incredible privilege. Being open to teaching has been a big part of making this dream come true for me.

As most artists know, there are seasons where everyone wants a piece, and seasons with no sales at all. This irregularity always made me super uncomfortable so when I started making moves towards making art full time, I looked for ways to generate consistent revenue.

Flash back to 2016, all I wanted was to spend my days weaving but the income was too inconsistent for me to reply on. My partner is a passionate music educator and thought I’d be a great teacher. Eventually he talked me into giving teaching a try. So I invited a few friends over for a trial open-center circular weaving workshop. Our one night workshop ended up turning into a 5 part series full of weaving, wine, and togetherness. It was so much fun. My friends ended up weaving these amazing wall hangings and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed teaching.

Back to today... I’ve taught hundreds of students all over the world how to weave their own circles through workshops and my self-guided circular weaving program, The Year of Circles. Having consistent income from teaching has allowed me so much more freedom to grow as an artist without the pressure of needing to produce art every single month to survive.

8. Where do you find inspiration?

Books about weaving are my greatest source of inspiration. I love learning about the cultural history of weaving and where patterns originate from. Historians think that weaving has been around since around 6000 BC which means that there are at least 8000 years of weaving to study! No matter where you go in the world, you’ll find a totally unique history of weaving with its own style of looms, tools, patterns, and applications. Not to mention how weaving has had a major impact on technological innovation for centuries. The more I understand the context of where my work fits into this rich history, the better my work gets and the more information I have to draw on.

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

My favorite weavers of all time are Anni Albers and Silvia Heyden. Contemporary weaving would not be what it is today without these two women and the paths they forged for weavers today.

In particular, I admire how Albers incorporated teaching into her weaving practice. I’ve learned a lot about being an educator through reading about her teaching style and approach to nurturing her students.

On the other hand, learning about Heyden’s intuitive weaving style opened up my world about what weaving could be. I’ve modeled my creative process after Silvia’s in many ways including her repetition of shape and how she disregarded many conventional rules of tapestry weaving. Her work gave me permission to leave the bounds of rectilinear weaving to explore shaped tapestry.

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

I hate to imagine a life without weaving, but if I had to I’d probably make writing a bigger part of my life. It’s something I’ve always loved to do and the creative process has a lot of similarities to weaving.

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

As I prepare to move my studio to Cyprus, I’m clearing out my inventory through a series of weekly auctions. Every Wednesday on Instagram, I’m opening up bidding on new and old work from 9am to 9pm EST. There are a variety of sizes and styles from throughout my career as an artist so far. If you’d like to purchase an original piece from me, I’d love to invite you to come see what I’m posting each Wednesday from now until I close up shop mid-June 2021.