you are invited….

We’re packing up today; Elaine’s car is jam-packed with supplies – low-tech only, no computers.  Tomorrow we’ll begin leisurely wending our way to Searsport Shores Ocean Campground and our residency – Spinning Tales and Weaving Words.

Our sessions are scheduled for an hour and a half Monday through Saturday in the mornings.  Check this post for the daily schedule.  We’re inviting all campers to visit us whenever we are working in the studio.  Come to observe and ask questions about fiber preparation, spinning, and the entire process of transforming raw fiber into a finished piece.  Elaine will be available to chat about her process of transforming a simple daily object or activity into poetry.  Or, just stop by for a visit!

Here are a few more pictures of Marianne doing some off-loom weaving while camping.

warping the frame

close-up of the warping process

the weaving begins

resulting color and texture studies

Participants will be returning home with some of the basics of  spinning, dyeing, weaving and poetry writing.  You’ll be taking home a spindle you made, dyed and undyed yarn that you spun, a woven piece made with the yarn you spun and dyed on the spindle you made, and a collection of your poetry!  You’ll also be taking home some fiber to continue your spinning adventures and inspiration to continue writing poetry.

We’re looking forward to meeting you!

Elaine and Marianne

will barter for clams……

Really!  We’re serious.

Here’s a peek at the basic plan for our July 17th-23rd Residency at Searsport Shores Ocean Campground – Spinning Tales and Weaving Words.

Monday:  We’ll be making CD spindles and learning about spinning and haiku.

Tuesday:  We’ll be spinning and writing free verse.

Wednesday:  We’ll be spinning and writing and hearing a carpet poem.

Thursday:  We’ll be dyeing our yarn!!! (with Kool-Aid)  We’ll be taking a nature walk to gather objects for weaving and poetry inspiration.

Friday:  We’ll be weaving and writing pantoums and exploring the patterns in weaving and pantoums.

Saturday:  We’ll be weaving, spinning, and writing – embellishing, finishing, sharing!

Marianne weaving at the campfire

We’re morning people so we’d like to start at 9 am.  It’s also much easier to work with wool when you’re hands are not all hot and sweaty!  We’ll be providing all materials needed for spinning, weaving, and writing. Feel free to bring a favorite notebook and pen along.  Join us for the whole six days or just a day or two.

The materials fee is:

$3 per day for an individual or $10 for the six day program.

$5 per day for a family or $15 for the six day program.

……….. or, clams.

Elaine and Marianne

drop spindles and kids and carpets

Marianne recently gifted me with a Near Eastern Style drop spindle. I had been doing research in a museum and came across a photo of a painting of Mother Mary (5^th century Armenian art) using a drop spindle to spin wool. My grandmother had told me stories of the goats in the old country, and how soft the wool was. My family is from Kharpet (think oriental carpets and Silk Road here, folks). Carpets and fiber seems to be in the DNA of many Armenians. Therefore this photograph really intrigued me; hence, the gift. I don’t think I’ll ever be adept at using the spindle, not after watching the speed of others, but I enjoy the feel of the fleece, and how it transforms into yarn—pretty cool alchemy–sheep to shawl! What I am comfortable with is sharing how fleece is cleaned, drafted, spun, and dyed with students, and here are some photographs of us.

separating fiber

reading Woolbur

My own weaving began with making baskets. I’ve gathered materials such as grape vine, iris leaves, hays and grasses to weave into baskets.  I’ve used natural dyes such as beets to dye some of the materials.  I’m drawn to asymmetrical natural contours when I’m working, and enjoy the look of work baskets that are well used.  I also  enjoy creating asymmetrical forms that function based on the flow of the materials.

Oriental carpets are hand knotted.  The red carpet  is a traditional Armenian carpet, with images from Armenian tradition and folklore.  Included are fox type looking  animals, eagles, peacocks, vishaps, or water dragons, trees of life, and other symbols of luck and protection.  The carpet is balanced between beauty, tradition, and bringing in enough ‘luck’ and ‘protection’ with the symbols to keep good fortune, but not to attract too much attention, and therefore attract envy or bad luck.  It also has cross symbols, which can be found on Armenian carpets.

The green carpet is  a Gabbeh made by the Gashgai nomads in Iran, from handspun wool and vegetable dyes.  See www.zollanvari.com for more history and information of this  type of carpet. The introduction  on the web site has some interesting photographs of the carpet making process, from sheep to completion, as the tribes herd sheep though  the hills.

These carpets were the inspiration for some poetry that I’ll be sharing with you during our residency July 17 – 23, 2011.

Elaine

spinning, dyeing, weaving

I enjoy all the arts, but fiber has always held a special allure for me.  I’m a tactile person, the varied textures of fiber always begging me to touch as well as look. I’ve been playing with fiber since I was a little girl, learning the basics from my mother and grandmother, immigrants who worked without patterns and passed on their knowledge as well as their comfort with experimentation.  At the age of 5, I began designing little fiber “creatures” to give as gifts to friends.  It seems I’ve always had some form of fiber in my hands. Ten years ago my new-found love of spinning set me on a path of discovery from which I haven’t looked back.  For the last six years I’ve been bringing my enthusiasm for spinning to others, teaching spinning to children and adults.

During our week-long program at Searsport Shores Ocean Campground – Spinning Tales and Weaving Words – Elaine will be guiding the writing portion of the program and I will be guiding the fiber portion.  Our daily time will be divided between fiber activities and writing activities. We have coordinated the fiber and writing activities for each day to create an integrated experience.

Our planned fiber activities include making and decorating simple CD spindles, learning basic spindle spinning, dyeing with Kool-Aid, and weaving with yarn spun earlier in the week and found objects from nature walks on the grounds.  As with the poetry portion of the week’s program, we’ll be sampling different fibers and techniques, encouraging exploration and experimentation.  Our goal is to have fun!

Marianne Hurley

weaving words

Spinning Tales and Weaving Words

Spinning tales and weaving words

in play

like a children’s game

just for fun.  Open mind, open hand,  Open heart.

For the pleasure of capturing a moment

a thought

or some random musing, as we put words

to paper.

The small poem above is my description of what the week’s work in
exploring and writing poetry’s mind set is.  We’ll be exploring with no
expectation other than to perhaps be surprised when pen moves our thoughts
to paper.  If you have a comfortable pen or small notebook that you enjoy
writing in, bring it with you to keep your ideas and notes in, so that
you’re always ready to jot down an idea when it comes to you during your
week.

We’ll look at several examples of varied styles of poems, and we’ll try
our hand at writing them as we work on weaving and making, and gathering
natural materials.   I think enjoying the written word can be compared to
enjoying varieties of food.  There are many many wonderful types and
styles of food.  And we all have  our favorite things within that.  So
think of this as a buffet or as tasting styles of  the written and spoken
word.  Some things you’ll fancy more than others, and it’s fun to explore.

These are a few poems  to sample. When you read them, try reading them
aloud, and notice what strikes you about them, the words, the images they
evoke, or particular sounds.

A Drink of Water Before Bed

Shells and stones
take company on the windowsill
collected form Spring’s green mountains
and the cyan Summer Seas

They reassure and comfort us
as December insists on a coverlet
tucking us under heirloom lace
and a night light of moonshine.
From Playing in Wrecks,  By Candace Curran

Spring Dance of The Sugar Maples

Fairy tale ladies
In yellow gowns and slippers
Dance from golden strings

Up and down they fly
Sweeping bottom, reaching sky
Delicate wind chimes

The King’s bold daughters
Dance trough the night, enchanted
Wearing out their shoes
From Playing in Wrecks,  By Candace Curran

Autumn

He lived alone by the old apple barn
after being released from confinement.
He was happy
except in the extreme heat of the early autumn day

When the bees would hoard all the honey
and dive into the warm cider he made
like airo-stuntmen from the old days.

He’d cuss  and leave them to it
and the bees would fall drunk around him
on the sweetness of the cider.

He lived alone  by the old apple barn
gathering apples where
they fell.
watching the stars on summer nights.

steering his dreams by moonlight
after being released from confinement
He was happy
except in the extreme heat of the early autumn days

When memories bobbed up and dived,
so many leftover dreams.
When he lived alone by the old apple barn

elaine reardon

Elaine Reardon

spinning tales and weaving words

However did we get from spinning and dyeing wool in the classroom to spinning, dyeing, weaving, and poetry in a campground?  A call for artists to participate in an Artist in Residency program is where it all began.  Who could resist the opportunity to spend a week in a light-filled studio at an ocean campground in Maine?  Not us.  Studio. Ocean. Maine. Woods. Spinning. Dyeing. Weaving. Writing.

A name emerged for our program – Spinning Tales and Weaving Words. As we refined our plan for the week’s activities, the parallels which emerged between working with wool and writing poetry surprised even us.

We’ll be presenting our expanded program for the first time at Searsport Shores Ocean Campground the week of July 17 – 23, 2011.  Campers may join us for any or all of the six-day program for a nominal fee.

We’ll be making and decorating spindles, spinning wool, dyeing with Kool-Aid, and learning some simple weaving techniques all while learning about and playing with various poetry forms.

Each day will be a stand-alone experience.  Those participating in the full six days will leave camp with a spindle they’ve made, a decorative hanging woven with fiber they have spun and dyed and a collection of their poetry.

welcome!

Welcome to our celebration of fiber arts and poetry. We (Elaine and Marianne) are good friends whose shared interests include the arts, education, and the natural world.

We’ll be presenting a program to introduce spinning, dyeing, off-loom weaving and poetry into an integrated experience suitable for young children through adults.  It’s an expanded version of the curriculum we prepared for Elaine’s  pre-school classroom.

Elaine preparing some fiber to dye with the children

We’ll be posting soon with information on upcoming activities and some examples of our work.