Finding aid of Joan Potter Loveless Slides of Weavings, AV.7003

[Identification of Item] AV.7003 Joan Potter Loveless Slides of Weavings, State Archives of North Carolina, Western Regional Archives, Asheville, NC, USA

The Joan Potter Loveless Slides of Weavings are comprised of sixty-three color slides of original weavings. All slides numbered. Some have brief descriptions on the slide mounts.

Joan Potter Loveless (1925-2009) was born Joan Couch in Henrico County, Virginia to parents Paul and Gertrude Couch. She became interested in attending Black Mountain College (BMC) after her mother read Louis Adamic's "My America, 1928-1938"(Hamish Hamilton, 1939) that includes a chapter entitled "Black Mountain College: An Experiment in Education." Joan enrolled in classes in the fall of 1944, but her academic tenure at Black Mountain was marked by several breaks in attendance.

At BMC, Loveless took art classes with Josef Albers and studied weaving with Anni Albers and Trude Guermonprez. It was at Black Mountain where she met Oli Sihvonen, an art student taking classes under the G.I. Bill. They married in 1946.

After the 1948 summer session, the Sihvovens and young daughter Kimry moved to Taos, New Mexico where Oli continued studying art. In the following years, the family lived in many locations including Taos, New Mexico; Mexico City; Washington, D.C.; New York City; and Cape Cod. During this time Oli began to gain acclaim for his paintings, while Joan taught kindergarten at prestigious private schools in Washington and New York, using an experimental curriculum.

The family of four (second daughter, Jennifer was born in New York) returned to Taos in 1956, where for a decade Oli and Joan were vibrant members of the artistic and cultural community. Joan began to weave tapestries using locally spun wool which she dyed herself. Although some inspiration for her may have come from her younger days at Black Mountain College, Joan's work was much more influenced by the New Mexico landscape and the weaving of the area's indigenous dwellers, the Navajo.

The Sihvonens divorced sometime before 1975. Joan moved with her three children (son Conor was born in 1965) to teach weaving at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It was in "The Bay State" that she met her second husband designer David Loveless. They were married weeks before Joan turned 50.

The Lovelesses returned to Taos in 1989. It was there that Joan completed her book, "Three Weavers" (University of New Mexico Press, 1992) that focused on her relationship with friends and fellow fiber artists Rachal Brown and Kristina Wilson.

Weaving

Tapestry

Donated by David Loveless in 2012.