Two women weaving a tale of dedication to their craft

It’s “tantalizing, exciting, stimulating, tactile, expressive, therapeutic, meditative,” and, as if that weren’t enough, asserts Robin Perez, it’s an excellent physical workout as well, great for toning the muscles of the upper torso, neck and back.

Inspiring and invigorating are other adjectives Pamela Topham suggests for an activity she says is constantly challenging her to break new creative ground, “to do something I haven’t done before.”

Weaving is the art both women speak of with such insight and passion, and to which both have committed countless hours over more than three decades, perfecting their skills, producing a unique woven oeuvre, and teaching others in classrooms and workshops. Indeed, both Ms. Perez and Ms. Topham will be offering workshops for adults beginning in January, Ms. Perez in Bridgehampton (information at 726-4962), Ms. Topham at the Ross School (631-907-5555).

Ms. Topham is known for her landscape tapestries, evocative renderings in wool and silk of tranquil woods and wetlands, farm fields and seashore; Ms. Perez’s work has ranged over the years to include accessories and sumptuous one-of-a-kind fabrics for fashion designers as well as a series of large-scale tapestries inspired by the natural world. Both show their work in

fine arts venues and both work on commission. Ms. Perez, whose large studio sports several large looms (serious fitness machines), will be teaching her workshop on four-harness floor looms while Ms. Topham will offer instruction in basic tapestry techniques using a simple frame loom.

Last week, in separate interviews, the two women sat down to talk about their own introduction to weaving, the path down which their passion has taken them to date, and their focus for the new decade.

It probably wouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that neither came to weaving from a goal set in girlhood. A graduate of the Syracuse University Art School, where she studied painting and costume design, Ms. Topham found her creative niche after traveling to Guatemala, where each village produces its own vibrantly colored signature textiles.

“That is where I got fascinated with textiles,” said Ms.Topham, “and when I came back, there happened to be a weaving class at Guild Hall.”

She enrolled and though she has one rug and a few shawls of her design in her Sag Harbor home, she was soon concentrating on tapestry, in particular on the luminous landscapes that are frequently inspired by her East End surroundings.

Ms. Perez came to weaving in a more roundabout way. Formative years spent sailing on the family schooner had fueled aspirations toward a career in science. When she wasn’t busy with correspondence course studies or crew duties on board, she spent hours gazing through a microscope at marine life and making drawings of the underwater world.

“I was serious enough about it that I went to Germany to learn German,” she said, but it wasn’t long before mastering the language of science began to pale compared to the pleasure she took in visiting the fine arts museums of Europe.

“I realized I would much rather study art or draw,” she recalled.

Still, the pull of the nautical life was strong enough that she spent another few years on the sea, crossing the Atlantic twice and mastering the rules and rigors of a sailor’s life to the point that she qualified for a 100-ton license, “which means that I could operate the Staten Island Ferry,” she laughed.

By the time she was ready to stop racing, “the only thing I wanted to do if I had to be on land,” said Ms. Perez, “was weave.”

Ms. Perez apprenticed with a well-known weaver in California, whose love for texture and color “was passed on to me,” she said.

These days, in the Water Mill home she and her husband built together, the evidence of her skill and commitment is everywhere, most spectacularly, perhaps, in examples from a series of large tapestries that she worked on for several years. One, called “Wings of Fire,” hangs in the living room and features a tiger swallow butterfly rendered with such precision and artful coloring that, were it not oversized, it might be mistaken for the real thing.

“I worked from a real butterfly,” said Ms. Perez, who noted that the tapestry was conceived the year that the Green Thumb in Water Mill planted three acres of asters. They bloomed in August, she recalled, attracting large gatherings of butterflies. For the butterfly, Ms. Perez employed the Aubusson tapestry technique, which she said is “like painting with wool.” For the wings alone, she noted, no fewer than 75 blends of yellow yarn were required. The geometric background uses a Navajo technique, and the broken edge at the top is Ms. Perez’s own innovation.

Ms. Perez’s living room also boasts a rich variety of rugs and throws, examples of another phase of her fascination with weaving that led her to create a line of accessories sold at Bergdorf Goodman, Henri Bendel, Bloomingdale’s and Lord & Taylor. In her studio, with its impressive collection of looms and a “vault” piled high with silks, wools, fur and leather, there is also a rack of garments that represent collaborations with such haute couture designers as Mary McFadden and Norma Walters. For them, Ms. Perez has woven one-of-a-kind fabrics in rich tonal blends and lush textures for their fall/winter lines.

“They are all one-of-a-kind fabrics that can’t be mass-produced, she said, adding with a smile: “That’s why designers love me.”

Ms. Topham keeps her two big looms in the basement, but confessed that she prefers to work upstairs where she can look up from her work at the view out her window.

Nature, after all, is her inspiration, though she would not have predicted that life would lead her in that direction.

“If someone had told me back then that I would be a landscape painter,” she said, “my response would have been, ‘Are you crazy?’”

She credits geography, in large measure, for making painting landscapes in wool and silk her focus in life.

“I think it’s living here,” she said, speaking of her love for the East End landscape. She will often drive out of her way, she said, just to pass by Long Beach in Sag Harbor.

“Just looking at it is a real pleasure,” she said.

Proving her point is one of her larger tapestries, hanging over the mantel—a tranquil view of Long Beach in quiet but glowing tones. Another large tapestry is of Accabonac, one of the East End’s most ineffably beautiful locations. Its original incarnation was as a commissioned drawing, but Ms. Topham found herself so enchanted by the landscape that she returned in the spring to follow up with a tapestry.

A description of the process she uses in developing her designs can be found on her website, www.pamelatopham.com, where she notes that she starts with detailed color pencil drawings, photographs and multiple site visits before dipping into her store of yarns in varied textures and hues for the final product.

Not all of Ms. Topham’s tapestries are of East End landscapes. Trips over the years with her daughter to a dozen national parks have inspired depictions of more spectacular terrain. She has also created a huge, six-by-six-foot tapestry that hung for 10 years at the Yale Club in New York and she was commissioned by McGraw Hill to create a series of tapestries for their offices and headquarters. In addition, Ms. Topham has a number of private collectors, some of whom have become her friends.

Ms. Topham observed that her work with the master weaver she calls her mentor, Archie Brennan, and his wife, who is also a master weaver, has become increasingly important as she continues to try new things. Known internationally, according to Ms. Topham, the couple conduct workshops for skilled weavers at their Inwood studio, helping with problems and connecting weavers to a network that gives them access to information and opportunities.

Ms. Topham credits that connection for taking her down some new creative paths. She recently completed her first historic landscape, for example, based on an 1830 etching of the Hudson River. She has also been experimenting with different weaving techniques and some innovative frames, one of which allows her to work in two layers.

Currently she is past the point of no return on a tapestry inspired by a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park that is turning out to be more difficult than she had anticipated.

“But challenges are good,” she laughed—expressing a delight in the difficult that Ms. Perez surely shares.