Thread over thread, warp and weft, pick, pick, swoosh.

Watching an artist create fabric on a loom can be as mesmerizing as listening to a percussionist on chimes.

Textile artist Mary Burks said the hypnotizing power of the loom is evident when people watch her during the process.

Burks will have plenty of onlookers behind her loom this weekend when the Whidbey Island Arts Council’s Whidbey Open Studio Tour gets under way on Saturday, Sept. 25.

Burks is one of a group of artists showing their work together as the Willard Group in Coupeville.

“Folks enjoy watching the loom at work creating cloth thread by thread,” Burks said.

“I work with textiles because I love the tactile quality of the fibers.”

Burks said she generally has about two projects going at once — the artwork and the wearable art — which is not surprising considering the list of forms she uses in her work: encaustic, jewelry, print-making, collage, textiles and wearable art.

“The wearables give me an opportunity for spontaneity through the dyeing of silk scarves. Silk loves dye. It is a race of the dye molecules to see which one attaches first to the silk and establishes its color,” she said.

“It’s magic to watch the colors blend together on the silk. Lately, I have been doing a lot of natural dyeing, and find that the colors have a wonderful affinity with each other.”

The Willard Group, so-called because of the location of the studio on Willard Way, also includes jewelry maker Donna Anderson, textile and print artist Ellen Vlasak and mixed-media artist and painter Patty Picco. The quartet of artists came together through activities at the Whidbey Weavers Guild and the Pacific Northwest Art School in Coupeville, and they continue to challenge and support each other as they experiment in various media.

Burks said one commonality of all of the artists in the group is the enormous influence that place and nature have had on their work.

“I moved to Coupeville about three years ago in part because of the extremely exciting fiber and art community I found here,” Burks said.

The combination of artistic stimulation and the peace and quiet of the island have both played a part in Burks’ capacity to produce.

“My studio is large, and I enjoy having other artists come and play with me,” she said.

Such playfulness among the artists extends to the work itself.

Burks enjoys incorporating themes of nature into her work, which she tends toward the minimalism of the Japanese aesthetic. But, although the compositions are simple, the process is involved.

“It is very time-consuming … but mentally calming,” Burks said.

“I like to create texture with the fibers using lots of folding, tying and stitching. I like to think of my textile work as painting with threads and dyes. It gives me great pleasure to work with such a ubiquitous material and to push its physical qualities aesthetically,” she added.

Burks said she likes the Open Studio Tour because she can talk to other fiber enthusiasts and show people what can happen with fiber.

Picco, another member of the Willard Group, works in encaustic, print-making, collage and mixed-media. She teaches various workshops in print-making at the Pacific Northwest Art School in Coupeville.

She said she enjoys being on the tour for the demonstrations she’s able to give interested visitors.

“For me, the process of layering in my artwork is intriguing,” Picco said.

“I may start out with one of my photos or monotypes. From there, I may combine my own papers with paint, paying special attention to the mood I am trying to convey in the piece. I also enjoy working with the encaustic method, which is the layering of beeswax and pure pigments, fusing each layer with heat, resulting in a rich, luminous texture.”

The Coupeville resident said studio guests usually have lots of questions about her mixed-media pieces and seem to enjoy watching the process.

The Whidbey Open Studio Tour is from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 25 and Sunday, Sept. 26. The tour is free.

The Willard Group is No. 9 on the map, which is included in today’s editions of the Record and Whidbey News-Times.

For info about the tour, click here.