I'm about to weave the band I originally had in mind when I thought about this whole bandweaving idea. I now have more knowledge and skills and I'm hopeful.
The heddle threaded and ready to mount on the loom. This design is a Sami traditional one. You'll see.
These bands aren't exactly for anything other than the experience of making them, and if they develop a use that's fine, but it's not a goal. They can just be.
I'm studying the great fiberartist Anni Albers just now. I was able to get her classic book on hoopla, and it's brilliant.
She talks about the intersection of art and engineering in textile arts, and how we're lacking in opportunities to experience texture, in a predigested world full of images and readymades.
She taught at Black Mountain College, in the 1940s, as a Bauhaus proponent, after she was obliged to escape the Nazi regime in Germany, along with her husband. What a powerhouse she was in art.
She experimented with weave structures, unusual materials and had great respect for the ancient textile artists of Peru and other civilizations.
Originally a painter, she was forced into the fiberarts by the sexism of the contemporary painting world, denying her opportunity, and her own physical disability limiting her movement, and she triumphed. The fiberarts world gained a genius.
Meanwhile, speaking of fiber, my cotton plants are doing well, soon to go outside, a couple promised to another gardener.
She grew cotton last year and I got the cotton bolls from her, but the seeds I harvested are doing better than hers this year,so I'm giving back.
Happy day everyone, grow all the things or get them from your friends.
