Veerle Melis

Name: Veerle Melis

Pronouns: she/her

Studio location: Brussels, Belgium

Website / social links: veerlemelis.net, @veerlemelis

Loom type or tool preference: a few nails in the wall

Years weaving: 3.5

Fiber inclination: linen

Current favorite weaving book: the Ashley book of knots

Contact information for commissions and collaborations: email address

 

 

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

I was on Holiday in Athens with a friend. Shortly before heading back to the airport we walked into this carpet shop, where I found myself saying out loud that I really wanted to learn how to make carpets. The carpet salesman invited me to come back, so I did. A month later I was introduced to Xaris who runs a carpet restoration atelier and is kind of a walking carpet encyclopedia. Over the course of a week he taught me the basics of knotting and weaving and showed me some brilliant carpets and tapestries. During that week I became reacquainted with the textiles DNA in my family. My grandparents were workers in Tilburg’s textiles industry, and passed on many stories as well as their textile crafts to me when I was little. I never imagined textiles would land on my path again, after having finished my theoretical studies, but as soon as I sat behind the improvised loom in Athens everything fell into place. Even though I learned the most by self-experimenting with different techniques, this short apprenticeship in Athens was the push I needed to come back into touch with textiles.

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 consider myself equally an artist and craftsperson. Craft holds an incredibly important place in my artistic practice and research. My work can be seen as an ongoing meditation on the ingenuity of (human) nature and on what it means to create. Performing countless repetitive gestures, I learn from what my material can and can not do and gain insights from little mistakes, slips of attention and all sorts of different associations. My work wouldn’t exist without getting my own hands involved.

3. Describe your first experience with weaving.

When cleaning up my grandparents’ attic, my grandmother handed me the small loom my grandfather had built for me when I was little. I, however don’t have any memory of using it. For me my first experience weaving was in Athens in the workshop of Xaris.

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?

My creative process is one ongoing thing that flows onwards transcending the different works. Generally the ideas for new works arise from insights in the making process of another work. I see my works as very interconnected and telling the same story. Even though techniques, colours and materials may differ, they all reflect on certain aspects of my practice. From my own role as an artist and maker to the context in which I make or my surroundings, inspiration, materials and their histories and other foreseeable and unforeseeable elements; I am interested in and try to be mindful of every tiny aspect of the process.

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

My goal through making, is to unravel what it means to create. Not solely on a personal level, or in an art context, but also more in general on a ‘world’ scale. By making and engaging with every aspect of it with open eyes, I feel I come to a sort of belly button understanding of the unfolding of our world and creativity as a phenomenon. My work is both an exploration of these topics and processes as well as a representation. Since I am interested in creation, my work takes a lot of inspiration from different historical and contemporary (textile) craft practices. I find the functional, decorative, artistic or architectural all equally interesting and valuable. 

 

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

Although some of my work is inspired by weaving, my techniques often are shaped by combining different textile fields. In my nets for instance, I interlace elements of weaving and lace making. 

Something all of my works have in common is the meditative repetitiveness of the gestures that shape my works. There are many good moments in the making process. From the first satisfying sketch, to the meditative, repetitive flow, to finding new technical solutions or discovering little valuable mistakes. The part I love the most is when the work is coming together towards the end and truly reveals itself. It is always surprising and different than envisioned at the beginning and will start to feel more like it is a thing of its own. 

My least favourite part is when I can’t seem to resolve a work, or the material doesn’t behave the way I hoped it would. But then still I believe there is something to learn there. For instance, I bought many glass beads to weave a net with, but it didn’t work the way I had envisioned. At the end I made something completely different with the beads. Having them forced me to explore different possibilities that I wouldn’t have figured out if I hadn’t bought them.

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 do sell my work, but can’t make a living out of it (yet). Artist funding, a side job and commissioned works. 

8. Where do you find inspiration?

Everywhere. In nature, in the city, in watching bugs or the flow of a river, in conversations with friends, in loose stones in the pavement. In make-shift shelters or weird restaurant signs. In archeology, contemporary art, miscommunication, bureaucracy. In everything made by humankind and nature. 

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

Wiener werkstatte, especially for their lace. Nona Inescu, a great young contemporary artist. I envy her work. Rodin for his sculptures, and Niki de Saint Phalle for her habitable sculptures. Anni Albers for obvious reasons. Hans Erni for his line drawings and Rosemary Mayer and Valentine Schlegel for their abilities to create worlds as women in a time that didn’t allow women to build worlds so much. And Laila Gohar for her relentless creativity with food. 

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

If I could no longer work with textiles I would probably find another repetitive medium to slowly build works with. But I just can’t imagine that though to be honest. 

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

A residency at the Van Gogh House London together with Liza Prins in the month of June. We will have a public programme that will be announced through their communication channels.

And I will participate in the Generation Brussels exhibition in September during Brussels Gallery Weekend.