Art @ the Library

In 2020 Westland Arts Incorporated and Westland District Library collaborated to make a free exhibition space available in the library.

Art @ the Library is a small, nimble and flexible project that aims to provide exhibition space for artistic and innovative proposals.

Current Exhibit:

On Colour for Weavers:

An exploration into designing heathered yarns

by Maria Martin Smith

Artist Statement:

Most wool yarns made in New Zealand are single colours, candy cane effects (2 colours plied together) or what is known as space dyed, where white yarn is dyed in hanks, which effectively give circles of repeating colours.

These methods are ideal for knitters, as the single colours can be dyed to suit human skin tones, and the circular repeats on socks and jerseys are small, making them ideal for space dyed systems.

However, with weaving, because the warps can be long (up to 60 meters), short circular repeats don’t work very well. Also, because the colour range doesn’t need to be limited to what works with skin tones, I find the available colour range limiting from an artistic perspective.

Discussions with Andy Ross, who, as a weaver, was based in Shetland, opened my eyes to the wonders of heathered yarns and with his encouragement, I began to explore the idea of making our own heathered colourways using New Zealand wool.

As I had access to pre-dyed roving (wool which has been washed, dyed and carded), I was able to take a few colours and begin exploring what happens when various combinations and proportions of colour are mixed using a drum carder. In the beginning, the experiments were rather random and inspired by native bush flora. As the ideas evolved, I realised I needed a full colour wheel of mixes to use as my base colours and then further develop and refine the mix from there. Here is that beginning.

Maria Martin-Smith
June 2026