celebrating both collaboration and compromise

it's been a while since I had anything really interesting to tell y'all but today I have two things to talk about.
one is the fabulous scarf I was gifted when I visited the Netherlands last (northern) summer, woven from her own exquisite handspun yarns by Caitlin Bongers (she's the one with the voice of the angels who started us all singing by the River Tay a couple of years back).
the other can wait for a moment.

the scarf waited patiently while I sailed in and out of home, emptying suitcases and refilling them, patting the dog, grubbing a few thistles and explaining to my cat just why I had to leave again. it was a busy year. so much so that I consciously cleared my dance card for the first three months of this one, so that I could find some space to breathe, to prepare for the next lot of teaching and to think about what my part of the collab might entail.

I should explain that when I received this gorgeous armful of softness I was quite overwhelmed. I know what it takes to warp up and weave something, and this piece is especially beautiful. I asked Caitlin if she would mind me dyeing it, and being given permission I suggested we regard it as a collaboration.

so this week, in between working on the "other thing" that I will shortly reveal, I sat in the armchair, dogs at my feet, cats and kittens disporting themselves over my shoulders, and decided that I would knot the fringe of the scarf. such gentle repetitive work is good for quieting the mind. while working I listened to a podcast from On Being, John O'Donohue discoursing gently on beauty. it was perfect.

then I was moved to take my needle and do just a little stitching into the piece. just a little.

I soaked it in a diluted iron brew (students may remember it as 'magic potion', made by soaking rusty things in vinegar, and heavily diluted for use otherwise everything can turn black)

it was firmly bundled with Eucalyptus scoparia windfall, and then cooked in a pre-loved dark brew. (it doesn't matter what your bundle is cooked in, it's what's inside the bundle that's important)

when it cooled, I unrolled it, and it just took my breath away.  THANK YOU Caitlin, for entrusting this treasure to me. it will be joining the "essential travel kit".

and the other thing?  that belongs to the 'compromise' part of the title of this post. various people had been kindly urging me to consider making an e-course, but I simply couldn't come at standing and talking into a camera. I'm not good at doing and talking at the same time. something to do with the cerebral hemispheres.

but I do like making books. so the compromise is that I have made a wee book that is a kind of workshop-in-your-pocket (or on your screen if you take the PDF version). it's mostly handwritten rather than typed but I wanted it to feel as though you were looking over my shoulder into a notebook.

what's in it? it contains the secrets of the tsunobukuro, that magical bias stitched bag of Japan that I so frequently share with students. (little ones are perfect for buying vegetables, the in-between sizes brilliant for gathering leaves, twigs or keeping your clothes sorted in a suitcase...and I always carry an extra-large one in case I run out of luggage space.)

it is available at blurb.com and if you send me proof of purchase (via the contact form on my website) I shall invite you to the 'secret' Facebook group where, for the month of February, I shall be posting tips and tricks and one or three "how to's", and where you can post images of the bags that you make, and have conversations with fellow 'baggers' around this marvellous whirled.

thank you for staying with me and for reading thus far. 

here are some related links to explore.

Caitlin's blog

the riversong

On Being

bagstories (the book)

at the tin thimble

here at the Tin Thimble in Loomis

we have been gathering windfall in the main street

devising marks to identify each piece of cloth

stringing a story [thank you Sandra for letting me adopt the clothesline to hang clues]

cooking bundles in a fabulous copper pot

eating delicious lunches made by Violette

and sharing a big table

on which to reveal the magic

and again i've had the chance to meet people

with whom i have corresponded in the past

as well as

catch up with some folk

i've encountered before

trendtablet

am delighted to be included on Trendtablet

an online collection of images and ideas

by Lidewij Edelkoort

please click here to hop there

joy

it becomes clear that a chosen path is the right one
when
after taking the first few faltering steps
signs appear

a kind weaver wrote to tell me of a loom in her safekeeping
that had been gifted to her
and was looking for a home

i went with my good friend r to have a look
and fell in love with it

we had to take it apart
to transport it home
the experience of constructing the Saori from flat pack
was very helpful
as was my friend r, who has [unlike me] been formally trained as a weaver
[my training is from my Ma, who can be formal but mostly prefers not to be!]

together we reconstructedthis wonderful passed-on gift
and now it awaits some loving care with hot beeswax
before i warp up

first though, i'm off to Melbourne
where i hear the Natural Dye Symposium is already in full swing in the concrete jungles of Fitzroy.

on the spinning of yarns and the weaving of tales

the mention of weaving in the last post
sparked a flood of private correspondence
in addition to all the kind comments

apparently

the zeitgeist is afoot
[weaving links around the whirled]
it appears many are either discovering weaving
returning to it
have been dreaming of it
or
been weaving their dreams

weaving is so embedded in our culture
and even in our language
we spin a yarn [or tell a story] - our maternal ancestry was referred to as "the distaff side" -
weave elements into a tale
weave our way through traffic

i suspect each and every one of us
could find a weaver in our ancestry
if we looked back far enough

and there are certainly plenty in the garden

artist Nina Katchadourian describes the mending of webs
helpfully using red thread

many webs are short-lived
but the 75th anniversary of a famous web
was marked last weekend
[there's a video of a wonderful firework display on the link]

roundabout and roundabout and roundabout we go

early in 2010 i travelled to Japan for the express purpose of studying the textiles on show at the Amuse Museum
the Boro cloths were marvellous indeed and i wrote about the visit here
but
there was something i didn't mention
something i kept close to my heart while i was waiting to see where it might lead
- that something was the weaving of cloth

a skill i had not used for some forty years
rediscovered thanks to a friendly weaver working on the top floor of the Museum
who was happy for me to take her photograph
[my apologies, i do not have her name]
and who kindly invited me to try weaving at her loom

in doing so
she lit a small flame that has been gradually growing.
and while i've been keeping my weaving fairly quiet
it will play some role in the exhibition "muddy waters"
to be shown at the Murray Bridge Regional Gallery in March 2013
along with paper and cloth, felted/stitched/dyed marks


i've never much taken to being limited by labels and i can't for the life of me see any reason for restricting my practice to a particular medium
- i want to tell my story the best way i can
and will utilize whatever is necessary to do so

and while i admit to showing "finished objects" when presenting work publicly
it's really not about that at all
the "things" that are shown
merely tell a Reader's Digest version of the bigger story
and that bigger story is all to do with the process of the work

...stitching on another plane the night before last
the woman to my left asked "what's it going to be?"
and was i think a little confused when i said "it might not be anything, it's what it is now that's important"
then wanted to know whether i was using a pattern

my response was "well, no, i'm just drawing with a needle and thread"
and she took her arm off the arm-rest and reduced herself into the middle of her seat
and focussed on her crossword puzzle.

maybe she thought it was contagious.

but back to weaving. i realised it was in the bones
[literally handed on in a long chain from mother via grandmother via great-grandmother and so on]
and that it had been subtly in my work anyway
woven pages in books, interwoven photographs
interlaced cloth pieces embedded in felt,
in making rag and stick and wire fences in our tiny garden on the Andamooka Opal Fields
so i dived back in

there are many weavers whose work i admire and respect
[Sandra Brownlee is one of them
Chiyoko Tanaka is another, along with Jun Tomita]
but i have no intention of trying to copy any of them
- i will be weaving my own path
in my own way

lucky for me
when i need to know something about weaving
i can still ask my Ma

 the last words for today go to Frank Lloyd Wright

"The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes"