Why Redux

I am a wife and mother of three grown children who is also a currently-unemployed Administrative Assistant.  Job-hunting is a full-time job in itself, especially in this economy.  So why on earth do I spend any time at all cleaning and combing the hair from any one of several ruminant quadrupeds?  I spend even more time twisting that hair into lengths of many hundreds of yards.  Does that finish the process?  No.  That is merely the beginning.  Then that hair is frequently dyed in a painstaking process that involves, again, precious time.  After drying, the next stage in the process begins.  Now why on earth would any sane human adult in our society choose to spend many hours using two or more pointed sticks to loop a continuous length of yarn into a shaped fabric?  Or using a hand loom to make woven fabric?

Let’s take a stab at an answer to those questions.  However, a caveat; this answer is quite subjective and getting it means that we must wander through my history.  My reasons for spinning and knitting will almost certainly not be yours.  Everyone has different reasons for their hobbies (or manias, depending on your definition of those terms).  

My daughter, during her teen years, described my mania to a friend by making a simple declarative statement that showed an amazing amount of insight.  Her comment, “Don’t interfere with Mom’s fiber time.  If she doesn’t do something ‘fibery’ every day she gets spiritually constipated and cranky.”  That is a fair description of fiber deprivation as demonstrated in my own personality.  But how did I come to the point where I routinely describe myself as a fiber artist?  What is a fiber artist, anyway?

‘Fiber artist:  An individual utilizing specific fiber-based media in the creation of original designs for the purpose of evoking emotion in the viewer.’  Of course that description holds true for any artistic expression.  In fact, a case could be made for a similar truism in any other medium.  Grant the artistic impulse which is generated in various forms in every human soul and you have the remainder of the equation to explore.  Why fiber as a medium instead of oil or watercolor or wood or clay or paper or bright, shiny beads, or…? 

In my case, it may be genetic, but is most probably environmental.  I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t routinely exposed to fiber as an artistic medium.  During the time and place in which I was raised, it was the most common medium for females.  One great-grandmother taught me to knit (badly), crochet, embroider and quilt (all quite well) as a child.  My grandmother was a seamstress, quilter, and crocheter of no mean ability, and a wonderful teacher.  My mother is a master quilter and exceptional seamstress.  I simply followed in the footsteps of my maternal ancestors.  But a combination of circumstances led me to begin my own creative process several steps before any of my childhood mentors considered “necessary”.  In fact, I feel a greater kinship with the great-grandmother who forced me to seed cotton on winter afternoons for her use in quilt battings.  She was the one with a spinning wheel and loom in the shed.

Need I say that I was a child of the 1970’s?  I graduated from high school in the early part of the decade, at the height of what was disparagingly called “the hippie movement.”  Was I a hippie?  No.  I was a middle-class Appalachian steel magnolia, the daughter of refugees from the coal mines of East Tennessee.  I was firmly encouraged to make better grades than most of the others, boys and girls, in my elementary and high-school classes.  After all, education had been my parents’ tickets from hardscrabble farms and mining; it would be my own passport to a better life.  I found all the nonsense about protesting the Vietnam War distasteful, since I had beloved uncles and cousins in the Armed Forces.  The fledgling feminist movement made sense to me though.  I was brighter than most of the men and boys I knew, and saw no reason to think less of myself because I was born with ovaries instead of testicles. 

Some things about the “hippie style” did appeal to me, though.  I loved the crocheted vests and bags, the long, flowing skirts, and the embroidered jeans and fringed shirts for weekend wear.  And I had a secret vice.  I made my own vests and bags and skirts and embroidered my jeans during the hours after school and on weekends. 

I was finally “outed” by my best friend at a slumber party, when one of the other girls commented on the vest I was wearing.  Her matter-of-fact reply of, “She made it,” to the question of where I’d found it started me in my first business venture.  After a commission refused to pay up, I stopped taking orders and began teaching those who wanted my vests and bags how to crochet their own.  Those teaching sessions continued into my college years and beyond – all the way to the present.  I’m still teaching anyone who expresses an interest.

A highlight of my childhood was our weekend (or longer) family trips.  We would pile into the car, a tent, cooler and camping equipment stuffed into the trunk, and choose a direction.  My father loved to drive, and my mother enjoyed exploring as much as he did.  During the course of our rambles, we covered most of the cultural and historical stops within a three-day drive of Knoxville.  I was always fascinated by the looms and spinning wheels I saw at places like Rugby and Cades Cove.  This was what the pile of lumber in Grandpa’s storage shed looked like all put together!  I started checking the News-Sentinel on Sunday for places to go that might have demonstrations of real people using those tools.  Since these were educational trips, my father could frequently be persuaded into making our rambles in the direction of whatever demonstrations I found.  My mother, while enjoying the demonstrations, was somewhat contemptuous.  “Why make your own fabric when the cloth shops are full of more material than you could ever sew?” was a frequent comment.  Nevertheless, I continued to be a fascinated spectator of weaving into my thirties, through marriage and the births of my three children. 

I was sidetracked many times through the years, learning to tat after the birth of my daughter and learning many other crafts because they looked interesting.  Fads came and went – plastic film flowers, cake decorating, pastry baking, silk ribbon embroidery and painting in various media.  The pursuits I continued, however, were the tatting, quilting, crochet, and embroidery.  Do you notice a common thread (pun intended)?

As sometimes happens, an illness precipitated my change from weaving spectator to weaving student.  During my thirties I developed health problems that necessitated my staying home for several years.  I loved being with my pre-school- and elementary-aged children, but needed something to occupy my mind during times when I was especially ill.  My doctors encouraged mental activity and mild exercise, and my husband provided the final stimulus.  His query was so simple, “What have you always wanted to do ‘when you had the time’?”  But the constraints were the same as faced by all of us who are parents – it had to be something I could do at home while watching the children and the cost of the equipment had to fit within our budget.  After a day or two of soul-searching, I answered him by saying, “I’ve always wanted to learn to weave.”  I had no idea of the journey on which I was embarking with that statement!

With his active support, I began looking for information on weaving.  You have to remember that this was pre-internet.  I started at the same place I began most searches for knowledge – the local library.  There was little available, but I devoured it and looked for more.  One of the librarians sent me to the local craft cooperative, where I found an entire room full of real looms!  I also discovered a bookshelf I could peruse and a weaving teacher, who, while unable to teach me on my schedule, nevertheless steered me in the direction of magazines like Weaver’s and Handwoven, and to resources like the Handweavers Guild of America. Through a convoluted chain of acquaintances I found a local weaver who wanted to sell a four-harness jack loom and my darling husband worked overtime to pay for it.  The day we brought it home was right up there with bringing my children home from the hospital for excitement and anticipation.  I’ve never looked back.  The mysteries of warp and weft, cotton and wool and rayon and silk, overshot and huck lace and twills kept me happily occupied throughout the next three years.  Items from that loom still see daily use in both my own home and those of my friends and family.

My grandmother was more than encouraging, reminiscing about her mother-in-law’s spinning and weaving and telling the entire family what I was doing.  My mother’s objections lasted until her first gift of hand woven fabric in her favorite fiber and color, and then evaporated.  An unexpected windfall resulted in my purchase of a new Schacht Baby Wolf 8-harness loom.  And my children’s teachers discovered that I was willing to haul my loom to their classrooms and show students the basics of creating their own fabric.  Things began to snowball rapidly.  Suddenly I was a juried member of a nationally recognized craft guild, the internet was starting up, computers were in the home, not just at work, and people were asking me to teach them about weaving.  I’d come around the circle from student to teacher yet again. 

My looms and yarns moved from the basement to a studio carved from what had previously been our living room with the purchase of a Toika countremarche loom.  The light is the best available in our house, and we were only using the room for the Christmas tree, anyway (of course I rationalized).  And the move prevented my husband from bumping his hip on the warp beam crank every time he came through from the office to the den!  It also meant that I could take care of chores like cooking more easily, and it gave me a more central location from which to participate in family life – I was turning into a hermit in the basement!

About the time my daughter started high school I joined a local guild composed of weavers, knitters, and spinners.  All the members were spinners except me.  Like my mother before me, I couldn’t see why I should bother acquiring smelly fleeces, bales of cotton lint and boxes of silk cocoons when there were all those lovely yarns and threads out there to buy.  Then the group did a public demonstration at a local museum.  We were the most popular attraction in the place, partly because we were using both modern and the museum’s antique equipment.  The crowd’s interest kept all of us hopping.  By the end of that Saturday I had picked up a toy wheel drop spindle and some Romney sliver and begun on the most basic stage of my fiber education.

The drop spindle soon moved over to my workbag as a portable way to spin.  My medical problems had been alleviated by new treatments and I was again outside the house, first as a student and then back at my old job of administrative assistant.  A third-hand handmade Saxony spinning wheel first joined the looms in my studio.  It was a pretty wheel, but not exactly what I wanted (it was too large for the space I had, too fast for a beginner, and the single-treadle style made my back ache).  So I sold it and replaced it with an Ashford Traveller DT, which I still own.  A couple of years later I purchased a Majacraft Suzie, which I soon replaced with a Rose from the same manufacturer.  I’m currently the owner of four wheels, having added a Kromski Symphony and antique great wheel to the mix.  The Toika moved to the basement (anyone want to purchase a really good loom?) and the studio morphed back into a living room…changes abounded as the children grew and moved out.

I started knitting again, too, after many years of only crocheting, and now I’m actually teaching knitting!  I have something of a passion for socks from my handspun, and adore lace shawls and scarves.  I’ve made sweaters, Shetland baby shawls, lace scarves and myriad other projects – and become locally known as the knitter who never uses a patten! 

My weaving life isn’t over, although the focus has shifted.  Loom pieces tend to be long warps of fine cotton in a point twill block weave order (huck lace is a favorite) that I can make up fairly quickly for a gift or on a whim.  I’m going back, utilizing a rigid-heddle loom for personal projects and teaching, and loving the unrivaled capacity for finger manipulation it offers.

I’m creating patterns, practicing techniques, teaching classes and learning all the time, from internet discussion groups and lists, and books and magazines, and other fiber artists.  The things I learn for one technique always apply to others.  I’m a better knitter because I crochet and weave, a better weaver because I sew and knit.  I thoroughly understand the crafts behind my art, which gives me choices - choices that enable me to make whatever I envision. 

Yes, I’m teaching.  A yarn shop has opened in our small town, and I love teaching classes there – classes that include spinning, knitting and weaving.  I spend the remainder of my free (hah!) time doing the things I choose to do.  Those choices include cleaning, combing and twisting the hair of ruminant quadrupeds, dyeing it and then creating various articles with it.  Sometimes those articles are for wear, sometimes for display.  But they always include a bit of my soul, and attempt to share my feelings with the wearers and/or viewers.  And that is the definition of art we talked about at the beginning of this ramble!

Another note:  I am an artist of the old school, with an understanding of the craft involved in creating my art.  Did you know that painting students used to have to learn to spin and weave so that they could choose the best fabric for a canvas and particular medium?  They had to grind and mix their own paints, too.  Sculpting students learned to quarry stone, woodworkers felled trees and dried wood, and some potters still dig their own clay from riverbanks.  Our society sometimes forgets that there is considerable craft involved in the creation of fine art.  The best tools in the world don’t provide the means of expression until you learn how best to utilize them. 

In my journey I’ve gone from sewing fabric to designing and manufacturing fabric, which, given the demise of cloth shops, can be very handy.  I can make whatever I imagine, as long as I’m willing to take the time to do it.  I have the skills necessary to create a fabric in whatever technique suits my design.  I don’t have to restrict my design to the materials commercially available – if I want silk or cashmere or alpaca I buy the fibers and spin the threads in the weight I want.  If I don’t like the currently available color palate, I dye the fiber or yarn the color I choose. 

In conclusion, I spin, weave, knit, tat, crochet, make needle and bobbin laces, sew and quilt because something in my soul finds its best expression through the manipulation of myriad small bits of hair from various plants and animals.  I do these things because I want to, and because I can.  And I share them with other people because I love to share my enthusiasm.  One thing leads to another, and influences the next.  My curiosity has driven this journey, and will continue to drive me into whatever the next phase happens to be – today I don’t have a clue where I’m going next!  But I’m happy with my today, and isn’t that the most important thing?