Weavers' Guild of Boston

Oh wow. I'm feeling humbled. And inspired.

I recently joined the Weavers' Guild of Boston (the oldest in the country!) . I went to a class in the morning last month about constructing handbags, but had to scoot right afterwards (as nursing moms know, it's hard to spend too much time away from the bambino - ouch!), so I missed the afternoon speaker.

This month, I skipped the morning class and went to the business meeting and stayed to hear the afternoon speaker. So glad that I did! I got to meet more folks - including catching up with my wonderful teacher from the Worcester Center for Crafts, Rita Steinbach (she creates gorgeous handwoven jackets). Even met another weaver from my home town. How fun. Sad to say that I was probably by far the youngest person at the meeting - I know there are other young(ish) (lol) weavers out there, hopefully they'll get involved with the Guild as time goes on...

Anyway, the afternoon speaker was Christine Spangler, who recently retired as an Assistant Professor at George Washington U. where she taught textile, interior design and design courses. She gave a wonderful lecture titled "Applying the Principles of Design to Textiles".

Oh my goodness. So much to think about. A lot of the concepts would probably feel basic to an art major, but not for me, really - I was always shunted towards the math/science/college level class tracks, which made sense at the time, but I do feel like there is a large gap in my knowledge at this point. Unlike my hubby - he's an engineer but he had an Art History AP class in high school and he actually *remembers* what he learned 20 years later. Freak. But a good person to have along in art museums.

But, anyway, I think I've gotten to the point of technical proficiency in my weaving and I really need to get going on the creative/artistic end of things. Line, shape, space, motion, texture, color - unity variety, emphasis, scale, proportion, balance, rhythm. So much to think about! And I think it's high time to deliberately put some of theses concepts into use in my weaving. Time to move away from the boring and start thinking about what I want to communicate...

Which seems a little overwrought for a scarf, but, hey, if I'm putting something out in the world as a representation of myself, I should put more thought into beyond just structure and basic color harmony, right?

Right.

Whew.