Bio: Robbie LaFleur, from Minneapolis, Minnesota, has been following a thread of Scandinavian textiles since she studied weaving at Valdres Husflidsskole in Fagernes, Norway in 1977. She has continued her study with Scandinavian instructors at workshops in Norway and the U.S. Recent projects include interpreting Edvard Munch’s “Scream” painting into a variety of textile techniques and weaving tapestry portraits of her relatives. She was awarded the Gold Medal in Weaving from the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in 2006. Robbie coordinates the Weavers Guild of Minnesota Scandinavian Weavers Group and is the editor and publisher of the digital Norwegian Textile Letter.

In 2019 LaFleur was a fellow with the American Scandinavian Foundation and traveled to Stavanger, Norway, to study the wool open-warp transparent tapestry technique of Frida Hansen (1855-1931). (full resume here)

Description: I’ve always loved the blue and green and red horses depicted in Renaissance-era Norwegian tapestry, of billedvev. My blue horse is not ridden by a king, but by my daughter. Rather than a ruff around her neck, Margaret wears a signature scarf. In her hand is a cell phone. Many of the motifs surrounding the horse are taken directly from historical tapestries — but not the camera in the tree to the left. That represents the topic of all the podcasts I was listening to while weaving, our modern-day surveillance society. This post reads to several blog entries about elements of the tapestry, “Medieval Mash-up with Margaret, Finished.”

lafleur1801@me.com