Artist soars with traditional weaving

Turkish-American artist Ayla Gizlice is in Sisters for a couple of weeks for an art residency at Pine Meadow Ranch (PMR), under the auspices of the Roundhouse Foundation. Her university studies are environmental science and art; many of her projects lie at the intersection of these disciplines.

On Thursday, July 14, she and several co-residents and staff from PMR gathered to learn about one of Gizlice’s art projects, which combines lichens and traditional kilim weaving.

Gizlice was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, and explored her Turkish grandmothers’ history of weaving kilims. Gizlice experimented with using lichens to dye the wool used in weaving her small kilim, noting that even a small weaving such as this takes many, many hours and significant planning and focus.

She wove this kilim using traditional Turkish weaving symbols, including water, harvest, fertility, unity, and peace. The lichens used to dye came from North Carolina and Oregon; locals will be familiar with the wolf lichen she used that produced the bright yellow-green color, although several of the lichens used produced colors other than how they appear to our eyes growing in nature.

And to combine the two ideas “air and joy,” she chose a kite-flying gathering. The kilim did not fly easily or very high, but it did enjoy the strong breeze that came up just as Gizlice finished her presentation and all prepared kites for an hour of playing with Sisters’ clean air and wind on a hot day.

For more information, visit Pine Meadow Ranch Center for Arts & Agriculture/The Roundhouse Foundation at https://roundhousefoundation.org/pine-meadow-ranch/residencies/.

More information on Ayla Gizlice is available at https://ayla-gizlice.com.