"May you Find a Joyous Path"

Marion Kirkwood, Lann Smyth, Julia Pelenyi with Marion's handwoven merino scarf

Recently I acquired the book  The Comfortable Arts: Traditional Spinning and Weaving in Canada, 1981 by Dorothy K. Burnham. It's an endlessly fascinating book with lots of  surprising discoveries. First I noticed just how many male weavers were practicing in 19th century in Canada, many hailing from Scotland, Ireland, and Germany. What also surprised me was that jacquard weaving was done in this country at the time. Weavers of the period were able to purchase a separate jacquard mechanism which they attached to their looms.

Weaving and Spinning class. Photo taken by William Notman in Montreal. Photo belongs to the McCord Museum also in Montreal. http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/scripts/imagedownload.php?accessNumber=VIEW-4037&Lang=1&imageID=161343

Burnham was hired by the  Royal Ontario Museum in 1929 as a "second assistant draftsman" .  In 1939 she became its first curator of textiles and retired in 1977, continuing her research and producing publications on Canadian textiles.

Warp faced rug by Jill Bidgood. 

Double weave lopi blanket in twill by Wendy Szpindel

Through her many publications she explored Canadian textile arts and developed research models that many generations of textile scholars employed. Some of her well known publications are:  Cut my Cote (1973), Keep me Warm One Night: Early Handweaving in Eastern Canada (with husband Harold B. Burnham, 1972),  and Warp and Weft: A Textile Terminology (1982).

Crimped fabric samples by Christine Shipley based on a workshop with Dianne Totten

Crimped fabric samples by Christine Shipley based on a workshop with Dianne Totten (http://diannetottenhandwovens.com)

She was involved in  special research projects  for the National Gallery of Canada, the  Museum of Alberta and the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Her 1992 exhibition catalogue To Please the Caribou: Painted Caribou-Skin Coats Worn by the Naskapi, Montagnais, and Cree Hunters of the Quebec-Labrador Peninsula won critical acclaim for her innovative and illuminating methodology. At ninety, she collaborated with Judy Thompson, Judy Hall and Leslie Tepper to produce Fascinating Challenges: Studying Material Culture with Dorothy Burnham (Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2001).

Plain weave tea towels in cotton by Wendy Hayden  based on a Jane Stafford project. 

In 1998 Burham received an honorary doctorate from Trent University. In her convocation address to the graduating class she told them:

"Life slowly opened up in front of me, leading me on to a path where I was fortunate enough to find a way of making a living that I was good at, and, even more importantly, that I thoroughly enjoyed ......my wish for you is that in spite of all the cutbacks and complications of the present time, you will find a joyous path to follow."  

Expect the Unexpected

Twill scarf woven by Marion Kirkwood with Soxy Lady yarn from Diamond Yarns. 

Sometimes in my weaving projects I have many false starts. One problem after another seems to arise and it seems that I will never arrive at the point when I will start weaving. There may be mistakes in the threading. The loom may be giving me challenges I had not anticipated. Problems come up I hadn't expected. Sometimes I can't figure out how to fix it and can't give it my full attention because life is just so busy with other demands on my time or my mind too full of other things. This mirrors life. Weaving lures us into its hypnotic trance while we throw the shuttle, and at first we are not aware of what pitfalls might lie ahead. Like life. And as in life, weaving is very much about one's attitude to  problems in life. Sometimes these problems are easy to solve. At others time they are not. This elicits various emotions and reactions. Impatience, anger, discouragement, frustration, swearing. I am no exception to this. It's important to see though, that weaving is at some point, about problem solving and altering one's attitude towards it. An attitude that will make life more pleasant and bearable especially for an activity that we so love. When an especially big challenge comes up, I sometimes have to walk away from it for awhile and let myself calm down and return when I am in better spirits. Problems are a part of life. When things go smoothly, I don't take it for granted and instead, feel gratitude. Weaving has taught me to move steadily forward, thread by thread, pick by pick, persevering and seeing the project through, and to learn the lessons I need to learn from it , whether it be a weaving one or life lesson. I try now instead to enjoy that kind of journey too, to relax about it, for it brings along with it, the supportive relationships and situations I  need. When problems arise, we really need others to be alongside us giving us their encouragement, support and understanding. 

Bronson Lace wool scarves woven by Marion Kirkwood, taken from the Handweavers Pattern Directory, by Ann Dixon. 

In his book The Statesman,   Plato uses weaving as a metaphor to explore some of the ways fabric and its forms provide us with excellent metaphors to conduct ourselves, as well as govern society.  In it Plato outlines that ruling is itself a kind of art, in the sense that the ruler must make decisions often in the absence of laws, using intuition and perhaps good judgement for the benefit of those he manages or is responsible for.  Plato reviews an exhaustive list of arts and discards each one as not providing  good moral paradigms for governance.  To paraphrase,   the web of the state should be  fashioned by weaving. The strands run straight and true, and these strands are the gentle and the brave who are woven into a unified network. Unity is valued for it draws individuals into  fellowship by mutual concord and by ties of friendship which creates the finest and best of all social fabrics. 

Christine Shipley brought this Monk's Belt potholder made from loom waste warp threads. It was woven by Anne Lewis and she sold them at the Cedar Ridge sale. 

It is surprising that Plato exalted weaving at a  time it would have been  'merely' a woman’s craft, and it is almost always an attribute of female characters in Greek literature, such as Helen in the Iliad , Penelope in Ulysses, Clytemnestra’s tapestries that entrapped Agamemnon. Kant says that Plato thinks of weaving as exercising a kind of judgement which is not formulaic. It is a judgement that is formed by the planning , foresight, discipline, calculations, consideration for parameters and limitations,  that need to be anticipated, which create in the weaver a measured judgement, and an ability to deal patiently with the challenges that present themselves.

There are always some positive lessons to be extracted from problems and challenges. Always some fruitful result if you are willing to wrestle with it honestly and authentically. And in these challenges, there can be nuggets of joy,  if, like a miner, you dig for it and realize that what you thought might have been a problem is a gift, because it forced your hand in transforming you, your life or your relationships in some incredible way you could not have imagined before. On your weaving journey, expect the unexpected. Sometimes it's problems we'd rather not be dealing with. At other times it exceeds our expectations in the most exciting way!

Escaping the Limits of Functionality

Last weekend I went to the opening of the World of Threads Exhibitions. I picked up Louise Lemieux Berube at the train station in Toronto and off we drove to Oakville. Shortly after we arrived we bumped into Pat Burns Wendland on the left, shown above with Louise Lemieux Berube from the Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles, herself an internationally known jacquard weaver. Pat's beautiful hand dyed, painted and woven Japanese style kimono hangs on the wall behind her. 

 Multi panel jacquard weaving by Louise Lemieux Berube

There were lots of fibre art works that were woven and on my blog I mainly feature those works of art. Many others  very worthy and spectacular works and equally worthy of mention but I limited myself to what was woven. 

Cathryn Amadei, USA

I'm glad I went to the opening because I met many of the fibre artists who came from all over the world. It was nice to connect their spirit to their work, as well as their faces. Since most of us work disconnected from other weavers in our artistic weaving practice, it was invigorating to spend time and talk to other fibre artists. To have this creative energy converging in one place was extraordinary. 

Double woven hand dyed wall hanging by Sarah Nording, Indian USA

Many of the works intrigued me as I pondered technically how they were done. Sarah Nording's work definitely captured my curiosity. 

Double woven hand dyed wall hanging by Sarah Nording, Indian USA

For years I wove and sold practical things  while simultaneously maintaining my own fibre art practice. Often the practical money making side overtook my creative time in the studio. These days there is much less focus on weaving the practical in my practice  but by helping my students I keep practiced at it, and I love it regardless. Weaving functional items has taught me so much about weaving technically, and as I help my students progress in their own technical forays, it helps to expand my own capacities, which in the end benefit and inform my creative endeavours. 

Double woven hand dyed wall hanging by Sarah Nording, Indian USA

The practical and functional weaving is focused on definite pre-established outcomes. Art weaving is more about wondering, wandering and taking the weaving to a place one hadn't thought of before. There is the element of  magical delight, and surprise. Although progress has been made in taking fibre art more seriously, there is still a long way to go before the art investing/buying public considers it as real art. It's true that the bulk of fibre artists are predominantly female and perhaps that has something to do with the state of affairs. To gain that respect as fibre artists is something we still have to crusade for. I encourage everyone to be more supportive of fibre art by purchasing it and supporting its practitioners. It will in the end, be a good investment, as  little by little , fibre pieces are acquired by museums. Buy  while the prices are still comparatively low. 

Double woven hand dyed wall hanging by Sarah Nording, Indian USA

After seeing this exhibit and the art weaving, it infused my own art weaving practice with energy and once again, I was eager to get back to the studio to explore my ideas and continue working on them. Weaving (artfully) will be my companion until the end of my days. There is no need to retire here until I expire! 

Unidentified artist

Donna Kim took basket weaving in Southern France this past summer. She sent me a link to the person who taught her,   Eva Seidenfaden teaching http://www.vissinggaard.dk/Courses.aspx.

More work from the World of Threads Exhibit is featured in the Tapestry/Exhibitions blog. The exhibit will continue until November 30 2014.

Overshot patterned scarf by Helen Skelton

Helen Skelton has commenced moving forward on creating her colour sampler. Together we figured out how to measure the quantities for weft colours using a special counter that speeds up the process dramatically!