The Woman Who Looked Over Her Shoulder
Wool, silk, synthetic, and nylon fabric strips hooked on linen backing; 24 x 24 in.
Designed and hooked by Michelle Sirois-Silver

Description of the Rug

This rug evolved through a creative process that involved working with several women. The goal for each member was to design their own rug based on the theme "Breaking The Mould". Each member would keep a journal documenting their creative process.

I had initiated this group with the belief that we all have knowledge to share. The creative process for this rug evolved in an unexpected way forcing me to confront my belief system about my own creative process. It pushed me to examine what creativity and passion mean to me. It was time to step forward and 'get real' about my art. The result was the design for "The Woman Who Looked Over Her Shoulder".

My design began with a simple line drawing of a woman looking over her shoulder.

Overtime it evolved into the finished larger piece with the blazing sun, sky, crumbling rock face, and text.

There are five main design elements in this rug.

1. The woman - she looks over her shoulder at the sun.
2. The blazing sun - represents focus.
3. The blue sky - fills much of the background. It represents hope.
4. The crumbling rock face - represents the dark side.
5. Text - is the subconscious, embedded in the rug and not intended to be legible.

The colour plan and dyed wool using Majic Carpet Dyes.

1. The woman is hooked using marbleized fabric for both the hair and face. Hooked in a #4 cut. The t-shirt is hooked using a small patterned synthetic fabric cut into ½ inch wide fabric strips and folded in half to create ¼ inch wide strips. Light value olive green was used to create the shadows along the jawline and neck.
2. The blazing sun is hooked using twelve different fabrics ranging from wool to silk to synthetic stretch knits. The pieces were cut into ½" width strips approximately 3 to 4 inches long.
3. The blue sky is wool fabric that has been spot dyed using Majic Carpet blue and red violet in weak solutions. The sky is hooked using a #4 cut.
4. The crumbling rock face is a combination of dyed and recycled fabrics. The fabrics are over-dyed using Majic Carpet dyes. The recycled fabrics are two wool stretch knit dresses. The over-dyed fabric is cut into #4 strips. The text in the crumbling rock face is a navy blue stretch knit with shiny dark blue threads running through it. The strips have been hand cut into ½ inch wide strips, then pulled into long tubes and hooked into the linen backing.
5. The text in the blue sky is silk. The fabric is coarse, metallic in texture, and silver in colour. Scissors are used to cut ¼ inch strips.
6. The border is hooked using the darker value of the two stretch knit dresses which pulls together all the design elements in the rug. The strips have been hand cut into ½ inch wide strips and pulled into tubes.

I began working on the design for the rug in February 2004. The initial design element of the woman came quickly but stopped there for several weeks. After taking a look at what creativity and passion meant to me as an artist I was able to breathe new life into the concept and the rest of the design fell into place within minutes.

The actual time it took to hook the piece was short although it was hooked over the summer months and into the fall. The condensed time spent hooking the piece was one week.

My favourite part of the rug is the woman. I loved working with the marbleized fabrics and hooking the face using the random technique.

The most challenging part of the rug was the face and I spent several weeks looking at the drawn design before I felt I could tackle it. The turning point came when I attended a one-week art therapy workshop. This helped me to tap into the subconscious and let it take-over the process.