A Weaverly Path

“I hear colors,” says Silvia Heyden, an 82-year-old Swiss-American who weaves tapestries in her sunny North Carolina home. Heyden approaches her art synesthetically, often with one sense expressing as another (as she says at one point, “I have an eye in each finger.”). The pieces she works on over the year covered in this appealing documentary are part of a series capturing the colors and movement of the waters of the Eno River. In filmmaker Kenny Dalsheimer's A Weaverly Path, the very articulate Heyden talks as she works her enormous loom using her hands and feet, interweaving stories about her history, music (she plays the violin daily, and likens the strings of the loom to those of the instrument), and craft. Heyden's work is remarkable: a pair of tapestries now residing at Wake Forest University are gargantuan renderings of two musical compositions, Bach's Chaconne and Buxtehude's Passacaglia. By the end of this absorbing portrait of the artist—marked by gorgeous camerawork and thoughtful editing—viewers begin to truly see Heyden's interconnected world of beauty, sound, and movement. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Gardner)