WOVEN

When my time as a production weaver came to a natural close, I felt adrift at the loom.

No longer interested in the list of projects I believed I would one day realize, I threw on a warp meant for exercise, nothing more, ten yards to keep the motion alive with hope that curiosity would find me down the line. We were living in a one bedroom cottage high in the hills of El Cerrito with a garage that faced the street. My loom wrestled for space against boxes of books and keepsakes, barely enough room to dress the segmented beam. Still, I made time each week to throw the shuttle. Each session, I'd rewrite the dobby that dictated the woven structure, testing time honored twills from Marguerite Davison's A Handweavers Pattern Book. I landed on horizontal stripes, alternating between Sally Fox's magnificent Coyote and spools of West Texas organic cotton I had leftover from my studio. That cloth gives privacy to our downstairs bathroom in Vermont, weighty enough to withstand Spring's ferocious gusts when we crack the windows for the first time.

Here, I've cycled through three different looms.

First, my AVL where I wove every garment for Voices of Industry. A dobby seemed like overkill for the task at hand so I packaged her up in felted blankets and a tarp until our space allows. Next, an 1800's antique loom I picked up at Marshfield Weaving School in the Spring of 2021. The right top corner is charred and reworked, likely the outcome of a barn fire where it was stored. Weaving on this loom is another act altogether, more poetic, more physical. I joined a weeklong workshop to uplevel my skills. There, I wove European linen for the first time, singles in the weft. That cloth covers our table on many nights and is riddled with wax stains both maroon and soft yellow.

When a 48" Macomber came up for sale at a Friends school in Albany, I leapt. This is the loom where I first learned to weave and her mechanics are without rival. Still built by a workshop in Maine, parts are readily available when the inevitable fails. I've woven hand towels for our house and for gifts. A new set of curtains with tiny leno twists that mimic rain hitting the window pane. Napkins of plaid with stains made of indigo inlay. Weaving as call and respond.

PHOTOGRAPHY: MCKENZIE TAPLIN