This is actually a follow up post from one I wrote back in April of this year. You may recall that I was the keynote speaker along with Anne Field from New Zealand at the Ontario Provincial Handweaving conference in Canada. You may also recall that Christchurch, New Zealand had a couple of horrific earthquakes, and apparently still continues to experience aftershocks more than a year later. Most of the town of Christchurch is still uninhabitable and the famed Art Centre that housed three separate weaving guilds along with Anne Field’s studio is sill inaccessible. With all the natural disasters, wild fire, extreme flooding, and other general atmospheric misadventures, it is hard to know who to help first.
I got a lovely note from Anne, author of a couple of excellent spinning and weaving books, just as I was leaving for California.
Here is the current situation. The guild equipment is still in the Arts Centre. Because of the June 13th quakes, which further damaged lots of buildings, no-one is allowed in to retrieve them. As the equipment is all stored in boxes and no part of the building actually fell on them, there is some hope that they are undamaged but the big question is whether we can ever get in to get them out. But because the buildings are not accessible, the insurance company is now working with the guild and hopefully they will pay for replacements. At the moment we have nowhere to put any stuff, and are still moving around to temporary rooms for our meetings. Because so much of Christchurch is unlivable in, whole suburbs will be re located, and every one else in in the same boat.
I was allowed into my studio in the Arts Centre for two hours at the end of May and did get out my weaving and yarns, but as, with the guild, I am not allowed in to get the looms and other big stuff out. However, the insurance company have paid out and I got replacement value thank goodness. So I got a new Baby Wolf loom from Schacht (they were very generous) and also they gave me the new sidekick spinning wheel. I have ordered a 30in, 24 shaft computer-assisted AVL, and will continue weaving at home. My ‘Learn to Spin With Anne Field book is just out and the publishers now want a Learn to Weave one so that gives me a project to work on. I do miss the studio though and the daily contact with people.
It is odd to think we are still having quite large earthquakes a year from the first big one, no one expected this and life has changed for most of us. But I guess the East Coast of the US didn’t expect their recent quake either.
I am returning to teach in the US and Canada Sept/Oct 2012 so am beginning to arrange that now. Everyone has been so kind and supportive since the earthquakes and it was such a kind thought of yours to help the guild.
Anne Field
The fall 2011 issue of Spin-Off Magazine has a short article written by Cindy Hill that talks about the earthquake and the three Canterbury guilds that have lost so much. “The Guild shop (that was in the historic Arts Centre in Christchurch) has been destroyed twice, three of the Canterbury guilds (Christchurch, Heathcote, and Styx) have lost their meeting rooms, the Society’s equipment cannot be accessed as it is in a building that may collapse, and six members’ homes have been destroyed”, according to Elisabeth Ashford of Ashford Handicrafts, 53 miles from the city of Christchurch.
Online donations to help the fiber community of the affected area can be made on the Ashford website’s secure payment page; just identify the payment as an earthquake donation. http://www.ashfordclub.co.nz/newsite/secure-payments.html
If you belong to a weaving or spinning guild, perhaps the guild will consider making a donation to help those in need in another part of the world.
Thank you always for your great blogs. Tell me, what model Janome machine do you have that you like so well?
The janome 6600 professional Gayle!