Passing it on…

Yes I know I’m completely exhausted, yes I know I need to disappear onto an island somewhere and close my eyes for a long long rest, but alas, there is no rest for the weary.  I jumped off the plane Sunday night, and hit the ground running…

For the past few years, I’ve given a “Where do Fibers Come From” talk to the second graders at a local elementary school every spring.  I look forward to it, really I do, but this year, it came on top of three months of back to back travel, and went into it with my eyes held open with toothpicks.  Once I’m in front of a group, the adrenaline kicks in, sort of like I’m on stage, and my body takes over and I do what I do best.  But getting ready for this one day event was really really hard.  First off, the loom I usually take did not have enough warp on it.  Since the loom was part of the talk where I segue into my life as an artist, not just any table loom would do.  (Thanks Sally for your kind offer of a loaner!)  I really needed to rewarp this loom, and it was actually more complicated than that.  I needed to rewarp it with what was already on there, and I had only enough for about a 3/4 yard warp, because I needed one more piece from it to match up with one I had already done.  So Monday afternoon and well into the night, I tied in a 900 end 3/4 yard warp.  OK, that was really really hard on my brain and on my arthritic fingers…  (Actually I don’t usually have trouble with arthritis in my hands, just my thimble finger, but after this little escapade, my hand stopped working altogether.)

Yesterday I spent the morning beaming and tying on and printing the silk to get ready for the demonstration and then taught my sewing class yesterday afternoon at the Newark Museum.

I packed everything I’d need last night, and got up early to load the car and head over to a different part of the County.

I love teaching kids.  They are so eager, and so full of stories, their hands shoot up in the air with such enthusiasm no matter what I say.  Any mention of underwear (as in your underwear is made from cotton and it is knitted) throws them into delirious fits and giggles.  And of course any mention of flush toilets (as in the sheep live outside all year and do not use flush toilets so you can imagine how dirty their fleeces might get) leave them howling with delight, and then when I pull the fleece out of the basket, the collective “EEEEWWWWW” just does my heart good.  Likewise when I pass around the dead chrysalis from the silk worm cocoon.  They just swoon over that!

So I started by showing them a cotton boll, and a flax plant, spun linen, and some silk worm cocoons (and the dead chrysalis, which I make the teacher hold).

I show them reeled silk, and then the alpaca fleece I just bought last month at the CNCH conference.  Then I bring out the sheep fleece.  I have an intentionally dirty one.  They love it.  I pass around different colors of fleece, and then I demonstrate carding the wool.  At this point, I explain there are two different things you can do with this puffy carded wool, you can spin it (demonstrate spinning on a drop spindle and then on a spinning wheel) or you can felt it.  I then assemble some colored wool, wrapped around a large flat river stone.  I put it in a zip-loc bag, and then add hot soapy water.  I pass the baggie around and have each of the 40+ students on the floor in front of me take a turn agitating the fleece.  By the end of the hour and a half talk, they have made a felted vessel which I work into shape as they are asking their final questions.

I show them things I’ve made from felt, and then I talk about some of the ways to color wool, including working with Kool-Aid.  The colored fleece on the spinning wheel here was part of what I dyed last summer in the crock-pot.  Then I begin talking about my life as a weaver.  I explain that you could weave cloth for garments.

But you could also weave pictures.  (Insert an interesting dialogue about what makes art.) Then I show a tapestry I did back in 1977, when I was in college, it always draws oh’s and ah’s, even from the teachers.  First I start with the cartoon, and then I talk about the back of the tapestry with all the ends, and that the weaver never sees the front until the piece is finished.  They all asked about the signature, which I had to explain was my maiden name.

Then I talk about the current “pictures” I weave, using the computer and printing the images onto silk.  I show the piece I wove called Big Sister and talk about how I read to my little sister, who was too young to read by herself.

I bring out the small diptych I just completed called Rest in Peace, except I don’t share the title.  I just talk about how I took my children up on top of the World Trade Center in August of 2001, my daughter would have been their age, and I was touched and amazed by how much they all new about the towers and how they fell and that this class was born in 2001, one child shared he was born on September 11, 2001.  One child told me his uncle died, another told me his grandfather died.  This generation will be one to be reckoned with.  They were born into a world that is very very different than we could possibly imagine.

I wanted to make a second piece, of the lower part of the diptych, to match the full size version of my kids on top of the towers.  That’s why I needed to put a 3/4 yard warp on the loom, using the small amount I had of the  original yarn.  I’d like to make a pair out of the larger version as well.

I ended the lecture (I did two of them today for two different groups of 40+ students), by talking about how I became a writer because I paid attention to the teacher when she taught us the essentials of writing back when I was their age.  (Here the teachers just about run up to the front of the room to hug me!).  I talk about how it is important to be able to write about what you do, and to write well, no matter what you end up being when you grow up.  I just wanted to grow up to be an artist, but ended up writing about it.  I pull out a couple of back issues of Handwoven Magazine, where I explain I was the features editor for seven years.  I show the articles, and then the garments that I made for the articles.  It really impresses them to see your name as a byline in a magazine.

So now, with my first column The Weaver Sews, up in Weavezine and this day of teaching behind me, I am heading off to bed to sleep for a week.  Or at least until lunch tomorrow when I am meeting friends for Sushi.  I can’t remember when I’ve been this tired.  Oh, and for those who have been asking, I finally blocked the finished sweater, the one I’ve blogged about and started six years ago, the one I finished last week on my trip to Mississippi.  I leave you with this image…