Hard to believe that this project was finished about 6 years ago! There is still one thing left to do. I have 8 dishtowels from the end of the warp that need to go out into the world and hopefully raise some money for a good cause, a group that is working for a more just and sustainable world. Let’s spread some wealth!
Recap:
This cloth was woven during the Stay at Home order between the end of March 2020 and the weaving was finished and taken off the loom on Juneteenth (6/19/20). The idea behind this piece was to find a way to restructure the fabric of society while maintaining the parts that do work.
It is time to weave a new cloth.
The beginning part of the cloth has a sparse background with 3 tablet woven bands representing the current state of society. The center band represents the concentrated money and power. The top band says “OPPRESSION” ➔ “LIBERATION”. The bottom band says “FEAR – LACK” ➔ “ABUNDANCE”. Those two bands represent the people who have been marginalized. Over the course of several weeks, the underlying foundation of the cloth (the warp) was restructured. The warp threads from the 3 bands were moved across the weaving with the result that the ‘Money and Power’ threads have been redistributed throughout, and the outer band warps have also spread out. The process of shifting the warp threads was really challenging and created some interesting and unexpected texture. The process and textures got even more complex when the outer warp threads moving towards the center met the inner warp threads moving out. Made me think about how do we spread out the wealth in society, as well as how we re-integrate people who have been marginalized. What happens when those two movements intersect?
Inspiration
The Covid-19 pandemic clearly showed, to anyone paying attention, the many things in our human world that do not work. It is also showed us how we are all connected. Wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of the few. Huge numbers of people, especially people of color and folks who don’t fit the dominant culture’s norms, have been marginalized. The result is a threadbare society where it is far too easy for people to fall through the cracks. This fabric is not very functional or sustainable.
The goal is to transition from a non-functional cloth to a sturdy functional cloth, to represent the society we want to create. I wove off the rest of warp and turned it into dishtowels.
Being a firm believer that things happen in ‘right timing’, the delay in getting these towels and story out in the world allows it to coincide with the current political climate. There are people in power who are working to maintain these disparities and while it is important to resist these forces, it is equally, if not more, important to illustrate the world we want to build. I will update this post when I know where the towels are going.
For those interested in the weaving geekery, here’s a summary of the process and timeline.
And for those interested in the esoteric aspects and correspondences, scroll to the end.
March 22, 2020 ordered yarn.
Prior to getting the warp on the loom, I wove a couple of sample bands and then had to get the loom set up.
April 6th, I started weaving.
This photo shows the beginning of the weaving with the loom set up and the tablets/cards for the bands in place. If you look closely at the fabric between the bands, you can see how loosely woven it is. There are 10 threads per inch in the warp at this point.
(see 1st blog post from May 4, 2020, The Restructuring – Part 1, for more detailed info on the setup and sample bands)
On April 10, started splitting the center band. This involved taking the weights off the warp at the back of the loom, pulling the tablets and their warp threads through the reed, moving them over and putting them back in place in the correct order as well as moving the warp threads between the heddles. And finally tying the weights back on.
This photo shows what things looked like behind the loom. The warps for the bands were weighted while weaving.
It took about 3 days to get all those tablets and warp threads moved.
Wove “Time to Share on 4/13.
April 27 – 28, have moved the tablets 14 times.
Each tablet was moved 4 spaces in the reed at a time until it reached it’s final location.
Typically one days weaving would be to move the tablets and then weave 8 picks. Occasionally I would move the warps twice, weaving 8 picks after each move. I started the process of moving the tablets on April 14.
On May 12, I started removing the tablets and threading those warp threads into the empty heddles I had left when setting up the loom.
(For more details on moving the tablets, see the blog post from May 13 – The Restructuring – Part 2)
Photo taken: 5/24/20
On May 28th, I removed the last of the tablets.
On May 31, I reset the warp weights and made a couple of modifications, and started weaving the cloth to be made into towels.
Left photo taken 6/1, all the tablets have been removed and starting to weave the towels. Right photo taken 6/17, Woven fabric wound onto the front of the loom, almost done, pink threads are length markers.
Finished weaving the rest of the warp and took it off the loom on 6/19
And for those interested in the esoteric:
Correspondences for this piece fell into 2 categories: planned symbolic representations and
numerous events that lined up while working on this piece.
Symbolism and Numbers
5 colors of warp – 80 ends each = 400 ends
Four is the number of sides of a square and is associated with stability and foundations.
160 Dark green and Yellow/gold – 8/2 tencel – shiny – Represents wealth / money / power
240 total, Gray, tan, cotton/linen yarn and white cotton yarn – represent humanity
Weft – olive green cotton/linen yarn – represents life / earth / spirit – connects everyone
10 dent reed – beginning background cloth 10 warp threads per inch, when restructuring done, it will be 20 warp threads per inch.
The background cloth at the beginning is ‘threadbare’ having half of the number of threads it should have.
Once I started moving the tablets across the warp, I wove 8 turns (of the tablets) and 8 weft picks between moves: 8 is a double square – foundation
Those 8 turns/picks became the process of building a new foundation. The first 4 was building it, the 2nd four was securing that new foundation.
Synchronicities:
Start at beginning of lockdown / stay at home order
This gave me the opportunity and time to concentrate on working on this piece.
Finished the first part (set up and wove to $ POW) just before the beginning of Passover and the 1st seder. Finished weaving the ER the next day and started the process of splitting the center band.
One of the main themes in the story of Passover is escaping from the narrow place (Mitzraim/Egypt)
As the Jewish people are leaving Egypt, they come to the Red Sea and divine intervention causes the sea to split so they can escape.
– During the first 3-4 days of Passover, I divided and moved the center cards into 2 groups. On April 13th I wove: TIME TO SHARE – This was the 4th day of Omer, and the spiritual qualities for the day are Netzach she’be Chesed – Victory / Determination within Loving Kindness.
Counting the Omer is based on an ancient agricultural practice of counting a measure (omer) of grain that was brought to the Temple in Jerusalem every day for 7 weeks (49 days). The medieval Kabbalists added the practice of associating each day with a pairing of the sefirot (spheres) on the tree of life.
– moving cards almost every day (except on Shabbat)
– started moving the cards at the start of the Omer
– finished removing the last cards on day 49 of the Omer (5/28)
– This ‘restructuring’ took 7 weeks
– became my 2nd Omer project that I was working on that year
– dealing with tangling threads required a slow & gentle touch, coaxing them into place.
Right around Shavuot (Jewish holiday celebrating the receiving of the Torah which was on 5/29 that year) the protests started happening, which made this project feel even more relevant.
This is probably the most intense piece I’ve ever done / worked on. As the world is unraveling I am slowly changing the the structure of this cloth. One tablet at a time, I pull the warp threads & tablet out of the reed, move them over 4 spaces and them pull them back into their new space, over and over again. Once the group of cards are in there new locations, the warps need to be re-weighted and the tables aligned with the base warp. Everything has to be order to be able to get a clear shed. I weave 8 pics then start the moving process again.
To secure the end of the weaving, I do a type of hemstitching. It essentially creates a row of twining at the beginning so it won’t unravel. Using a long tail of the weft, you go over one warp thread and then diagonally under the next one locking the weft yarn in place.
First 10 inches of weaving done. Warp is a 20/2 linen sett at 24 epi. Piece is 27” wide, so there are 648 warp ends. The main weft is a 20/2 silk yarn. The blue and purple are 8/2 Tencel. Note: before doing the hemstitching, wove in more header to the beginning of the dyed part of the warp (no photo).