Outdoor loom
A while back, I shared with you, a list of things I might want to try this summer. Making an outdoor loom was on the list. Gretta helped me set up the frame between two trees when she was up here one afternoon. A few weeks later, I set up the warp string. I used old daylily stems, birch bark shed naturally from a tree, black-eyed Susans, cedar fronds and Baptisia leaves for the weft. I’ve long been fascinated with the work of British artist Andy Goldsworthy, whose art is often left out for nature to alter it. I’m curious to see how the wind and snow up here will change my little loom.
Flax in Vermont
There’s a wonderful group of folks in East Barnard, who are “committed to stewarding the land and building community through the process of growing flax for fiber”. You can read about them at Green Mountain Linen. This weekend they held the East Barnard Linen Fair and I wandered along dirt roads to join the fun. I reconnected with an old friend, who owns the field where the flax is being grown, and now I’m even more intrigued about the process. The website is filled with gorgeous photos and lots of info about the work they are undertaking. Much of their work is an effort to “weave the world together” with partnerships with folks in other countries where flax is grown, harvested, processed and woven. :-)
Baskets at the Portland Museum of Art (Maine)
Plain on the outside, brilliant on the inside!
This image was created with porcupine quills on birch bark.
“Relief print and embossment printed on Charbonelle Silver ink with chine-collē on indigo Gampi paper with handwoven Wabanaki basket by the artist on gray Rives RFK paper.”
I’d been wanting to see this exhibit all summer. This weekend, Batman and I met up with my brother Doug and sister-in-law Ra in Portland ME. We spent Sunday afternoon looking, in amazement, at the baskets of Jeremy Frey.
Read about this remarkable artist here.
Whether we’re weaving fiber or stories or lives…let us be reminded that strength can be found in the ways we go under and over, back and forth, tugging to close in the empty spaces. We are bound, all of us, by the communities we weave together.
Do you feel woven into the world, dearest reader? Where? How? Or not?
xo