Matilda Dominique

Name: Matilda Dominique

Pronouns: she/her

Studio location: Solna, Sweden

Website / social links: matildadominique.com, @matilda_dominique

Loom type or tool preference: 10 shaft Bergå Savonia floor loom (with an added countermarch), 24 shaft META table loom

Years weaving: 18

Fiber inclination: wool

Current favorite weaving book: Always Anni Albers On Weaving

Contact information for commissions and collaborations: email address

 

 

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

My grandmother was a weaver, as I grew up I’d see her make almost all the textiles for my grandparent's home. After High School I took a one year foundation course in textile craft and design. My teacher, Ylva Linder, was one of the reasons I really enjoyed learning to weave. She inspired us to experiment and discover our own ways.

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’m an artist and weaver.

3. Describe your first experience with weaving.

It was at Väddö Folkhögskola, a craft school in the archipelago outside of Norrtälje, north of Stockholm, Sweden. My first piece of weaving was a green rag rug tapestry self-portrait. I dyed both the warp and the old sheets I used for weft in different green nuances, and wove in a silhuett of my own head in the middle.

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?

If I want to dye the yarn, that’s where I start. I plan the process in my head beforehand, but rarely make any sketches or other research. A new idea often starts where an older work finish. The loom, threads and structure then guides my work, and I often like to test the same technique with a variation of yarns. Experimenting is key. One specific weave structure has become quite significant for my work: the waffle weave technique. It has followed me / I have been exploring it since my MA at Konstfack 2012-14. A few other techniques has since entered my sphere of weaving: mock leno and shadow weave.

I have two looms in my studio. A 10 shaft countermarch floor loom that I inherited from my grandmother and a 24 shaft table loom. The two offer different approaches but I enjoy working on them equally. I’ve also played a bit with industrial jacquard looms which gives the weaver other opportunities. These machines are not as easy to access for me so usually I stay with my smaller, hand operated looms.

Writing, reading and doing research are ways for me to figure out what I’m doing in the loom. These activities often take place alongside of the weaving, or after a piece has been finished.

Once the woven piece comes off the loom I continue to work with it and test it’s capacity to become a sculpture or a spatial object. Sometimes the same weaving can be presented in different ways depending on the context, and sometimes I let a finished piece become something else completely later on, by cutting it into smaller pieces or dipping it into a dye bath.

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

For a long time, my work centered around my interest in the woven structure itself, and how the threads and weave structure work together to take shape. I’ve been quite obsessed by the technical part of weaving. When I first started working with waffle weave, I also thought a lot about architecture. I saw each thread as a building block in the woven construction, and as this particular structure becomes three-dimensional, each square in the pattern makes its own little room or space. This is still of importance to my work, alongside with other conceptual approaches: the textile as a bearer of meaning and the dichotomy between the domestic and the public.

The weave techniques I work with are traditionally used for making objects for the home where they have a practical use. The waffle weave, when woven with linen thread, has a great ability to soak fluid and dry quickly (therefore often used as a dish cloth). The scale of my woven structures is however huge in comparison and the objects I make are not at all functional. When I exhibit it becomes apparent how the weave structures and fibers themselves embed memories and evoke strong emotions for people that see my work. A sculpture can start conversations about how someone learned to embroider in school, or memories of a grandmother’s hand made kitchen towels. I like the connection people often make to their personal lives.

 

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

I enjoy when one part of the process is finished and I get to start with the next. To see results of the time spent drives me to keep working. If I repeat something too exact in the weave I usually get bored, therefor I make myself change things that might seem inconsequential, like the yarn thickness, or to dip-dye the weft to create subtle color shifts. But in reality each such detail often make a huge difference in how the work ends up.

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 I also teach weaving. I think both is beneficial to my work in the studio. I get energy from meeting the students that I can bring back into my own practice. Teaching also gives me an income that enables me to work as an artist. Selling my work has two sides I think, it’s nice to get appreciated (and money!) and to see the work in new spaces, but it can also be intimidating to be a salesperson as I’m not at all trained in that profession. If I sell work through exhibitions it’s easier as someone else is in contact with the buyer. I try not to make the selling of works affect my studio practice. I want my process, research and curiosity to be what drives my work - not what easily can be sold.

8. Where do you find inspiration?

In my loom, in books, in exhibitions, in conversations. Almost everywhere.

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

An artist that I often come back to is Anni Albers, I admire her artistic legacy enormously. Both her textiles and texts have been important for how I have approached art through weaving. A few years ago I was in New York and had the opportunity to see some of her works in a group exhibition at Moma, where works by Magdalena Abakanowich, Sheila Hicks and Lenore Tawney were also exhibited. It was really powerful to be in that room there and then.

All of the mentioned artists have the thread as a common denominator, and I am especially inspired by how they work / worked sculptural, monumental and spatial with textiles in different ways.

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

Maybe teach more or work as a curator and spend more time writing.

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

On October 6th, Stockholm Craft Week is opening in Sweden where I will exhibit together with weaver Sara Elggren and a group of artists in Studio Solgul.

March 2023 my solo exhibition opens in Enköpings Konsthall, Sweden.