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This photo taken at Grand Teton National Park shows the 1916 tempestry on left and the 2016 on right. Both were knitted by Frankfort resident Ruth Webb. (Photo courtesy of The Tempestry Project)
Kerry Lowary's tempestries — 1916 on the left and 2016 on the right — hang at the Oklahoma City National Memorial. (Photo courtesy of The Tempestry Project)
Two local knitters are using their craft to draw attention to climate change.
Volunteers Ruth Webb and Kerry Lowary knitted tempestries using yarn colors that depict the daily high temperatures at two national parks. Both fiber artists are featured in the book “National Parks Tempestry Project.”
Using temperature data from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the high temp for each day in 2016 — the National Parks System’s centennial anniversary — is represented with corresponding yarn colors and photographed next to its 1916 or 1966 (if 100-year data was unavailable) tempestry counterpart.
This photo taken at Grand Teton National Park shows the 1916 tempestry on left and the 2016 on right. Both were knitted by Frankfort resident Ruth Webb. (Photo courtesy of The Tempestry Project)
According to the The Tempestry Project’s website, one of the ongoing problems inherent in discussion about climate change is the vast scale of the conversation. The tempestries allow the viewer to visually compare the temperature differences between the years at a certain location.
Similar to bar graphs, January is represented at the bottom and December is at the top. There is a row of color for each of the 364 days in 1916 and 2016 — as they were both leap years.
“The Tempestry Project’s goal is to scale this down into something that is accurate, tangible, relatable and beautiful,” the site states. “Tempestries blend fiber art with temperature data to create a bridge between global climate and our own personal experiences through knitted, crocheted and woven temperature tapestries or Tempestries.”
The National Parks Tempestry Project is the brainchild of Erika Zambello, who recruited fiber artists from across the country to hand-stitch the original tempestries.
Each volunteer selected their favorite national park — one that was important to them or one they had a history with.
Webb knitted tempestries representing the 100-year difference in temperatures for Grand Teton National Park, which encompasses approximately 310,000 acres in northwest Wyoming. Webb has family ties to the area.
"My grandfather moved to the Jackson Hole area in 1902 when he was 2 years old and spent most of his life there. In addition to being a game warden, he was manager of the National Elk Refuge just north of the town of Jackson for decades," she said. "My mother was born in Jackson and raised on the refuge with a wonderful view of the Teton Mountains."
In 2016, to mark her mother's 90th birthday, the family took a trip to the area where they visited her childhood home and shared stories of her life with her great-granddaughter.
"Like countless others, my husband and I have enjoyed the beauty and wildlife of the park over the years and one favorite memory of ours is restating our marriage vows in the Chapel of the Transfiguration with its superb view of the mountains," Webb added.
Kerry Lowary's tempestries — 1916 on the left and 2016 on the right — hang at the Oklahoma City National Memorial. (Photo courtesy of The Tempestry Project)
Lowary’s pieces show the 1916 and 2016 temps at the Oklahoma City National Memorial in Oklahoma, which honors the victims, survivors, rescuers and all those who were affected by the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995.
Lowary visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial shortly after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted.
“It’s been an amazing experience to hear from people why they chose their parks, what they love about them, and how the parks have changed in the last 50 years,” explained Emily McNeil, a founder of The Tempestry Project.
Every park that was chosen now has a pair of tempestries to show these two different years and compare how temperatures have changed over the last half-century or century.
“All original tempestries use the same yarn colors and temperature ranges in order to create a visually cohesive narrative across a wide expanse of makers, places and eras,” the project website states. “This consistency is an important aspect of the project, and works through either ordering our kits or using tempestry yarn along with your own data.”
The Tempestry Project has its own exclusive yarn line, which uses 100% U.S.-sourced wool, custom milled and dyed in Nazareth and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
“Clearly this particular iteration of the Tempestry Project resonates deeply with people,” McNeil said. “It expands on the idea of a collaborative, communal, shared project — so many of us have a personal connection to the national parks, and it seems like people really jumped at the chance to both honor their favorite parks and use them as a means of honoring the work we are all collectively doing.”
A portion of the sales from the photography book will go to the National Parks Conservation Association.
The book “National Parks Tempestry Project” is $29.95. To order, visit the website https://www.tempestryproject.com/product/national-parks-tempestry-project-book/
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