collaboration – Weave Story

Doin’ Demos

April 29, 2015/0 Comments/in Interesting stuff /by bschutzgruber

I would not be doing what I do today if it were not for demos.

Yes…. I was the kid mom and dad would lose at places like Greenfield Village – part of the Henry Ford museum complex in Dearborn, Michigan, Historic Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, or any of the Mackinac State Historic Parks at the northern tip of Michigan’s lower peninsula. The 5 of us kids would all be there one minute and the next thing they knew… there were only 4. Luckily, it did not take them long to figure out where to find me = simply backtrack to the last place that had demonstrations and there I would be… still watching….. completely spellbound. At all of these places.. and many more…. I saw weavers, spinners, dyers, blacksmiths, woodworkers, glass blowers, ropemakers, coopers…. all plying their trade for everyone to see. Everyday people actually DOING these crafts with skill and artistry – creating magic right before my eyes and I would lose all track of time… and my family as they moved onto the next thing.

Demonstrations are a fabulous way to connect the general public to skills and crafts that are no longer part of our modern everyday life and I love doing them.

I’ve done them at our guild sales and at fairs. My work as a storyteller, along with my fascination with odd bits of off-beat information, certainly helps.

Showing how things are done….

letting people touch the wool and yarns….

and giving them have a chance to throw the shuttle….

create tactile hands-on experiences that can stay with someone their entire life. Telling the stories of the workers in the mills, how fortunes were made and lost, and where the terms and sayings we use today originated brings dry facts of history to life and connects us to our past. This is where cloth comes from….. this is how it’s made…. and these are people who make it today.

One of the fun things about doing demonstrations is that you never know what may come out of the experience. Because I’m talking with people as I work and need to be able to stop at any given moment to answer a question or give a quick recap, I do not attempt to create anything complex – I just play and try out ideas. This was true at the last AAFG Holiday Sale when I made a hat using silk chiffon fabric covered with layers of merino wool and silk fibers as embellishmentto to demonstrate wet felting. Because this hat can be turned inside out, you get to choose which ‘look’ strikes your fancy = more intense color or muted color.

I was pleased with the experiment and continued playing with the idea in different colors.

Not only can doing demonstrations educate and allow for experimentation, they can be a welcome distraction. For the past 12 years members of the Ann Arbor Fiberarts Guild have been weaving at the University of Michigan Medical Center as a form of entertainment and distraction for patients and family members who are waiting to see the doctor. Currently we are in the lobby of the Cancer Center and the cloth woven is made into hats that are given to patients undergoing chemo and other treatments.

“We are so pleased to have this wonderful skill shared with our patients,
not only for the calming affect it has by sitting and observing the weavers,
but also for the lovely hats made for our patients from the weavings.”

Share….. Educate…… Outreach…… Connect…….
all this and more can be found when doin’ demos!

Critic or Critique?

January 26, 2015/7 Comments/in felt, Interesting stuff, Projects /by bschutzgruber

Critic (noun) a person who expresses an unfavorable opinion of something

For many people, including myself, the idea of having your art judged does not bring happy thoughts to mind and can crush creativity. My elementary school did not have an art teacher. A picture from a magazine would be taped to the chalkboard and we were simply told “Draw this.” The results were always graded using letter grades (A to E) one for content and and one for neatness. My work, if I was lucky, might…. just might…. get C-/D and there were no suggestions to help me improve my work. To this day the thought of drawing something sends me into an anxiety attack.

Critique (noun) a detailed analysis and assessment of something

Getting a thoughtful critique can raise art to new levels, broaden perspective and increase creativity. Last year I worked on large felt wall hanging for the annual Ann Arbor Fiberarts Guild show which runs the month of February in the lobby of the Power Center for the Performing Arts here in Ann Arbor, MI.

View From Above
(28″ x 82″- felted wool fibers)

This was one of the largest felt pieces I’ve ever made and felting it was physically demanding. I was pleased with the design – the mix of colors and line movement. It made a statement, especially from a distance. I believed it was good enough, so fingers crossed….. I submitted it.

It was not selected and in my disappointment I suddenly found myself emotionally back in elementary school. But here is where ‘critique’ turned this experience from the negative ‘critic’ into something positive. The jury committee had made comments. Some were positive (it was felted well and it did catch attention from a distance) PLUS there comments about where it still needed work:
1) there is no real change in value (light/dark) within each of the colors used
2) there was nothing new to discover once you stepped closer

So for the next year I thought about what I could do to embellish this piece yet stay true to my desire to only use felting techniques.

Using a barbed needle to punch fibers into place,

I needle felted silk fibers to give a broader range of color value and bring more interest and details, then I repeated the wet felting to blend everything together.

Top detail – before and after

Bottom detail – before and after

I am happy to say that Coastal Waterways was accepted for this year’s Power Center Show.

Critic or Critique? It’s all in how you say it and where the emphasis is placed.

Coastal Waterways
(26″ x 79″ – felted wool & silk fibers)

Waulking and Art Fair and more…. oh my!

July 21, 2014/2 Comments/in Interesting stuff, weaving /by bschutzgruber

July has been a month filled with one event after another!

Starting with demonstrating in the Textiles Tent at the Saline Celtic Festival which combines my 2 artistic loves…. stories and weaving.

The weather was sunny and relatively cool for a Michigan summer so attendance was good for the festival. Mary Underwood and CJ Kohoyda-Inglis organized the Textile Tent filling it with fabulous fiber folk so besides my weaving demonstration, there were members of The Spinners Flock demonstrating different forms of spinning and knitting.

One of highlights of our tent is ‘Waulking the Tweed’ with Frances Acar leading us in song. ‘Waulking’ is the Scottish Gaelic word for fulling. Woven woolen fabric needs to be ‘fulled’ when it comes off the loom. Pressure, warmth and moisture creates tiny pockets of air that lift up the woolen fibers making the surface softer, thicker and more weather resistant. Before the days of machines this was done by hand with friends and family in a community event – each bringing fabric that needed to be fulled. If there was not a table long enough for the fabric, doors were often taken off hinges and set on the ground or saw horses for the work surface. Songs were sung to set the pace, rhythm and coordinate movement. By measuring the woolen fabric after every 2 or 3 songs controlled shrinkage can be achieved. The songs are call-and-response with the leader singing the verses and everyone else singing the refrain. Many of the songs were about how wonderful, intelligent or handsome a husband/lover is OR how that husband/lover is a no good rogue and lowlife. (Some things haven’t changed over the centuries!)

Right on the heels of Celtic Festival came the Ann Arbor Art Fairs.
For 4 days more than 1,000 artists sprawl over 27 blocks of Ann Arbor as 4 separate nationally recognised art fairs are going on simultaneously. The weather was fantastic and nearly 500,000 people came over the 4 days. My work, along with 15 other guild members, was part of the Ann Arbor Fiberarts Guild booth in the State Street Area Art Fair. It certainly ‘took a village’ or in this case a guild (16 sellers and 20 volunteers) – to build, man, and take down our booth.

And finally…. the month closes out with the National Storytelling Network Conference in Mesa, Arizona filled with master classes, keynotes, workshops, storytelling concerts and swaps. Here I’ll connect with storytellers from across the country and help with the 8th season of the Fringe Performances.

The Great Tapestry of Scotland

June 1, 2014/0 Comments/in embroidery, Interesting stuff, tapestry /by bschutzgruber

While visiting Aberdeen, Scotland this spring I was able to see an amazing tapestry exhibit – The Great Tapestry of Scotland. This tapestry is composed of 163 hand embroidered panels, each 1 metre square, depicting the history of Scotland… from the Ice Age to the beginning of the 21st Century.

The project was initiated by author Alexander McCall Smith, historian Alistair Moffat and artist Andrew Crummy. Dorie Wilkie coordinated over 1,000 volunteer stitchers, of all ages and abilities, from every part of Scotland, who put in over 65,000 hours to hand stitch 300 miles of wool thread onto Scottish linen to create the world’s longest tapestry – 143 metres/156 yards.

Andrew Crummy’s design work is amazing – as you can see from the details found in the different sections on the opening panel. (Color distortions are due to my camera and no flash allowed in the exhibit.)

As he designed the main images for the panels – he also left sections open so that each group of stitchers could add their own individual touches to truly make this one of the biggest community arts projects ever to take place in Scotland. Many of the stitch groups signed the bottom right corner of their panel.

In the middle of the exhibit – I watched local stitchers work on a panel, inspired by this project, depicting the city of Aberdeen

and was able to actually touch samples of the linen and the stitch work used.

The Great Tapestry of Scotland website has detailed information, background and history of the project, samples of the embroidery stitches used, a fabulous slide show of all the panels, plus an audio file telling the story of the making of the tapestry…. which I’ve been able to listen to while watching the slide show by having both windows open!

The exhibit it currently in Paisley (that panel was stitched at the town’s Thread Mill Museum by former mill girls) until June 8th. It will continue to tour Scotland through the end of November with hopes to bringing it internationally.

Modern Medicine and the Ancient Art of Weaving

January 5, 2014/1 Comment/in Interesting stuff, weaving /by bschutzgruber

Weaver Janet Phillips in the UK has been involved in the project to weave shoulder tendon patches. There is a short news item on the BBC website at the moment. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25573341

“I have been doing ongoing research with this team of scientists from Oxford University for five years now developing an internal woven bandage. It has been fascinating and it is great to see the research come to the point were a bandage has actually been made and is about to be used in surgery. The project with Oxford University has been really interesting. It started when I was still living in Oxfordshire. We started weaving 1 cm square, plain weave pieces on tiny nail tapestry frames. It seemed important then to have finished edges on all four sides. Everything went quiet for three years while the scientist looked at other textile methods of producing the patches, but they finally came back to weaving because the textured surfaces helped the tendon cells to adhere to the fabric better than other textile structures.

We then spent quite a bit of time experimenting with different weaves. Plain, 4/4 twill, Satin and Sateen, Huck Lace and Leno were all tried. It was important that the patch should stretch in all directions. It seems that 4 and 4 twill has won the day. Sett also became an important issue. They ended up buying an 100 dent to the inch reed!

It has been great working with these young, energetic, and dedicated scientist on such an important project. It never ceases to amaze me how dependent all mankind is on weaving.”

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