Eleanor Van de Water, embroidered tapestries
marilyn...@aol.com
LIFE STORY A visionary life, stitch by stitch
by Amy Martinez Starke, The Oregonian
When she quit teaching first grade to stay home with her two children,
Eleanor Van de Water dabbled with embroidering napkins and placemats
and selling them at an arts and crafts fair in Vancouver.
"I knew I had to have an all-consuming hobby, or I'd keep the house
clean," she said.
A church designer she met by chance threw some art commissions her way
in the early 1970s. Eleanor had never done such a thing before, but she
kept that fact to herself and jumped in. Her work was a success. Word
got out among churches.
As a single mother after her divorce in 1976, she was able to make a
living stitching banners, altar and pulpit cloths, and vestments, as
well as doing private commissions and textile restoration. Being her
own boss suited her well; she was very much a loner in her work.
Eleanor, who died Dec. 15, 2005, at age 74, became known for her
one-of-a-kind liturgical art. Some of her hangings were so huge that
she never got to see them in their entirety until they were unrolled
and displayed in the church.
On a trip to a small town in Wales in 1999, she happened to see a
historic tapestry that gave her an idea: Why not stitch a similar one
detailing the history of her longtime home, Vancouver?
Eleanor, a woman of salty, wry, sarcastic and even acerbic speech, who
smoked for years and enjoyed wine from a box, achieved her goal.
She loved an expression that she associated with Ilchee, a rugged
Chinook woman: "Ilchee paddled her own canoe." Ilchee, pictured on a
Vancouver statue, is on Panel 69 of the finished tapestry.
Eleanor was the youngest of six children. Her mother, also a single
mother, was a seamstress and dressmaker who taught Eleanor about
design, fabric, texture and scale.
Eleanor Jones graduated from Vancouver High School and studied home
economics at Eastern Washington University. She became a homemaker
after her marriage to a teacher she met at her church. She also taught
a series on public TV, "Creative Stitchery," and stitchery classes at
Clark College while her career caught on.
She worked out of the family room of her Hazel Dell home. It was a big,
messy room with thread, fabric and beads piled on work tables
everywhere, and yarn stored in an old hardware store's nail bin.
Eleanor did not keep great records of her work, although she completed
dozens of pieces for area churches or chapels.
Inspiration of light
They are all different, but light is a recurring theme. Light glows
ethereally or in vibrant red, orange, silver, copper or purple for
Pentecost's intense tongues of fire. In one, Lenten fabric appears
shredded, revealing blood red underneath. Metallic yarns catch the
light. Or light fades.
"I keep going back to the source of light, strength, inspiration. I'm
intrigued by the dualities of life --light coming from darkness," she
said.
She also loved forms in nature, such as shells, ferns and branches, and
works in deep rich browns and greens. Human figures were not her
strength.
Sometimes Eleanor put her needle in the fabric not knowing exactly what
was going to take place. She encouraged this kind of freedom: "Let it
wander. Feel free to go with the inspiration. Sometimes it will become
something else entirely."
"You know you are done when you are so sick you cannot look at it
anymore," she once said. Her favorite work was always the next one.
>From craft to celebrity
Eleanor prided herself on her Welsh heritage. At first, she declared
she was "part Welsh." Then she became just Welsh. She stitched an
altarpiece for her grandfather's little stone church in Wales and
presented it to the church in 1992. She basked in the glow of being a
celebrity. A male chorus sang to her in a pub until she wept.
In 1999, she took a tour group to Wales, and somebody on the tour saw a
tiny newspaper ad featuring a 100-foot-long textile narrative about a
battle in the town of Fishguard. They took a side trip and met the
designer, and Eleanor returned home determined to organize a tapestry
of Vancouver's rich history, scene by scene, stitched in wool thread on
linen.
Her vision and enthusiasm were contagious. Many signed on with money or
volunteer labor. Starting in 2000, Eleanor spent hours researching
details, choosing scenes, doing full-scale drawings, and making final
drawings with specific stitch techniques for each line and space as
well as chosen thread colors.
Dimming eyesight
It was a sad coincidence that in the beginning stages of the tapestry,
Eleanor learned she had macular degeneration. "It seems like a dirty
trick," Eleanor said then, adding, "I don't intend to quit now."
She stitched the first few panels herself. But her eyesight dimmed so
much she could no longer draw, let alone stitch. By 2002, she was blind
in one eye and saw mostly shadows with the other.
Her co-organizer, the one who worked with the volunteers --something
Eleanor did not enjoy --finished the drawings in Eleanor's style.
Eleanor hoped millions would see what she couldn't.
Cruelly, she also lost much of her hearing and suffered with arthritis
and strokes. Shut in her own world, she became depressed and resigned
as director, but friends continued to bring her to the tapestry
workroom.
When the completed tapestry was dedicated last August, she was there as
people murmured, "It's too bad she can't see the tapestry now that it's
finished."
That's not true, though. Her vision was very strong. She had already
seen it, before it began.
Amy Martinez Starke: 503-221-8534; amys...@news.oregonian.com
Hyfler/Rosner
<marilyn...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1136901182.8...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> January 8, 2006
>
> LIFE STORY A visionary life, stitch by stitch
>
>
> In 1999, she took a tour group to Wales, and somebody on
> the tour saw a
> tiny newspaper ad featuring a 100-foot-long textile
> narrative about a
> battle in the town of Fishguard. They took a side trip and
> met the
> designer, and Eleanor returned home determined to organize
> a tapestry
> of Vancouver's rich history, scene by scene, stitched in
> wool thread on
> linen.
>
Here's lots more on the Tapestry Project:
http://www.fortvancouvertapestry.com/artists.htm>
Brigid Nelson
wrote:
According to this webiste^ it's currently, or will soon be, on display
at Clark College. Just as I was going to state that I would look for
it, I realized I *have* seen it. For anyone who's in the area, it's
upstairs in the new student union building.
brigid