Janel Leppin’s music can sound like something out of a dream. The multi-instrumentalist uses cello and an ethereal voice to weave an uncanny atmosphere on her 2017 solo album American God, released under the name Mellow Diamond. Leppin has recently performed at the Luce Foundation Center at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and will begin a residency with her jazz group Ensemble Volcanic Ash at Local 16 later this month. But her next concert will showcase compositions woven from a different kind of material. In fact, they’re literally woven.

Janel Leppin: Weavings, which opens at Comet Ping Pong on Saturday, is the first extended solo exhibition of her fine art weavings, made from materials she’s collected over the years.

Take one of her most ambitious pieces, a 41” x 69” portrait of jazz legend Alice Coltrane. The loom’s vertical lines suggest the harp and piano Coltrane played, and the vivid fabrics come from old clothes, each piece telling a story.

She bought the sequined dress at the top of the frame with her grandmother at a thrift store. It was so short that her grandmother called it The Shocker. “I played Galaxy Hut with it and it was way too short to play the cello,” Leppin says.

What of the wild floral print, whose pinks and purples dominate the piece? “This was a ‘60s dress held together with duct tape. I wore it once and never again.” Another fabric swatch comes from pants she bought in a Venice market in her 20s. “I just throw them on a loom and see what happens.”

How did she pivot to this visual medium? “I had a lot of performance clothing that I was just squirreling away in my closet,” Leppin says. “A lot of vintage dresses that were just torn … I couldn’t really wear them anymore, but I loved the fabric.”

Her performance clothing brings the energy from past shows to the pieces. But this solo work also became a kind of collaboration. Friends have given her their own clothes to weave into her work, and the finished pieces become a way of sharing their memories.

This is Leppin’s first solo show of visual art, but this isn’t the first time she’s displayed her weavings. She first brought a loom composition on stage at the 9:30 Club in December 2017. For a Black Cat show in February 2018, she lined up the main space with her art, and recruited 17 bands, each of which played in front of a different weaving. Leppin also displayed work in a group show at the Takoma Park Community Center in May 2019. The Comet Ping Pong Show is the culmination of her weavings to date, with a pair of pieces created specifically for the venue.

Leppin admits that some of her weavings are … well, janky. A nearly seven-foot high portrait of artist Egon Schiele has begun to twist on its frame, which seems to be the subject exerting his own agency over the process, turning the piece into something more sculptural. Approaching the work like an improvising musician, Leppin says, “The imperfection of the pieces is important to me.”

While Leppin pays homage to artists of the past, it’s equally important to her that she give props to living artists, like the Philadelphia-based indigenous American artist Noel Bennetto, aka Brass Arrow. Leppin had been a fan of Bennetto’s clothing line, and began the portrait before she met the artist. When they finally met and Leppin explained what she was working on, Bennetto offered some of her own dyed fabrics, and contributed a medicine bag to the piece.

Leppin approaches her visual art with as much care as she does her music.

“There’s a fair amount of trust. Every time I start a new piece, I have those moments—trust yourself, evolve into something you like,” she says. “If you don’t do that, keep working until you do. It’s the same with recording. If I have pieces I’m not sure about, if I just trust myself, that’s really the most important thing. Without that trust you are floundering around. There’s a fair amount of that in both art forms.”

Saturday’s opening reception at Comet Ping Pong will feature plenty of music as well as visual art. Leppin will perform with her husband, guitarist Anthony Pirog, as their longtime experimental duo Janel and Anthony. Poet Kelly Xio will read her work accompanied by a saxophone quartet, performing a piece that Leppin composed especially for the event. A group of Leppin’s music students gathered under the name SCAMPER will perform a King Crimson piece. (“Let’s try something hard,” she encouraged the 12-year old musicians.)

The Comet show is a ticketed event, but there will be music and art in the dining area as well so people can come for free and see at least part of the event. The program will be kind of like a live mixtape, and Leppin is all in favor of such multi-genre cross-pollination.

“If you have a whole host of singer-songwriters on the same bill, it’s a little boring. Let’s have solo sax. Let’s have a turntablist. Let’s have a punk band and close it out with hip-hop. I would go to that show!”

Opening reception Nov. 23 at 10 p.m at Comet Ping Pong, featuring short sets from The El Reys, Antonia, Saxophone Quartet #1 with Kelly Xio, Janel & Anthony, and Sister Starless. The artwork will be on display at least through the New Year. $12.

This story has been updated to correct the genre of Janel and Anthony.