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Luddite Love

How can I claim to be a Luddite when I love my iPhone? If I am not a Luddite then how can I be a hand weaver in the 21st Century? Existential crisis! This was brought on by a tragic submersion of my beloved iPhone in soapy dishwater. I felt like I was in mourning.  No 3:00 am crossword puzzles, no tic-ish email checking, no calendar synching- despair!!

Seriously serious ball winder borrowed from my seriously wonderful fiend the Kangaroo Dyer

Seriously serious ball winder borrowed from my seriously wonderful friend the Kangaroo Dyer

This has all brought on the dreaded “mulling”.  Why DO I weave.  I can’t (yet) make a living at it. I am very lucky if I can cover my materials and heat at this point.  I went to a local GIANT fabric warehouse called Osgoods to buy some pillowforms lately, and I had to laugh at how very little NEED there is in the world for more fabric.  So why?  The answer I came up with has to do with evolution (you can stop reading now if you would like).

Wound warp ready to SLEY

Wound warp ready to SLEY

Could my relationship to fabric be encoded in my DNA.  I certainly feel a core connection to fabric and fiber – from the baby blanket to the wedding dress fabric IS meaningful, but I don’t kid myself that this is universal human connection. But could there be an evolved state of satisfaction in effortful process and product – a state that is (contrary to the ad world’s promises) unreproducible by purchased effort?

Ready to beam

Ready to beam

Beautiful, memorable fabrics can be purchased – sometimes for less than the yarns  needed to weave them and definitely for less than the combined costs of looms, equipment, space AND yarn.

Woven

Woven

I read recently that humans have evolved to see and value effort. I think that the effort expended in industrial processes (whether cars, fabric or iPhones) is too diffuse and complex for us to react to in the same way as we can to something handmade. We can love and appreciate things that our industrially produced products allow us to do or do for us, but the appreciation we feel for them is quite different than what we feel for handmade things.  And the feelings we have for things we have produced ourselves – particularly things that have taken skill and effort – are worlds apart from the satisfaction of purchasing something pleasing.

All the weft left

All the weft left

This is where the problem comes in.  It is really crazy to be a hand weaver today, and most people know it.  I think that the craze for Triathlons, Ironman runs, Marathons, etc. is explained by the fact that we LONG for the satisfaction of something produced by our personal effort and skill – something tangible – not a process that is part of a larger process. However, we can’t face the ridiculousness of producing something that can be industrially produced faster, better and for less, so we turn to the grit and effort of working on our bodies which can’t (yet) be industrially exercised.  This gives us (well, not me) the satisfaction of personal and sustained effort and skill development without the embarrassment of spending money and time on something not valued by the culture at large.

Super drapey Alpaca Throw

Super drapey Alpaca Throw

Sooooo – why weave? One could answer, “Why paint?” “Why write?” but our culture does value “art” at least once it has been proven, but sadly there is almost no status in craft.  Sooooo, why weave?  I guess in the final analysis – because I can and because I can’t not!!  And as to my iPhone . . . I love it because it keeps me connected to my fellow weavers, it allows me to catalogue all my weaving books and it has very excellent measuring app – FOR WEAVING.

 

COMMENTS
  • February 8, 2013
    reply

    Marlene Toerien

    HI Elisabeth, as my daughter is travelling to Howick, in Natal to go and swim the Midmar Mile, which you won’t recognise or know, what you say about the appreciation of craft, and triathalons, marathons, Iron man competitions are so true. I usually get why do you weave?, or do people still weave?, and then few and far in between I get how lovely, keep on weaving nobody else is doing what you do. Most of the time I am weaving as a method of stash control. I know I can’t stop now before I have used up all the yarn that I have now.

    Keep well
    Marlene Toerien

  • February 11, 2013
    reply

    That is an interesting take on why people do physical challenges etc.

    I think that the urge to make or work with cloth comes from some deep primodal part of the brain. After all, it was a matter of survival until very recently. Some people might be more successful at suppressing it that others lol.

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