Obligation and Evidence

I went to the museum on Wednesday for my weekly bobbin winding session.  When I arrived, there were four young men at the front table working on winding their bobbins.  One of the things I like about this project is speculating on the motives of the visitors to the Local Industry exhibit.  Of course, it would be easy enough for me to interview everyone I encounter, find out how and why their involvement came about, but I like supposing.  There was a sense that their visit was required in some way.  They wound their bobbins, one answering a phone call mid-winding, and left. Check.  Bobbins wound.  What's next?
This was in contrast to the two ladies that came in next, sat down to wind bobbins, and continued to wind one after the other, periodically remarking that, "they could do this for hours".  As they left, they remarked on the therapeutic nature of the process.  The two docents at the museum wandered through the exhibit, tidying the work tables, periodically evaluating the bobbins, sometimes unwinding and rewinding a portion that had lost tension, salvaging bobbins that, otherwise, would have been unusable to the weavers.  I find myself at the middle of these levels of obligation.  Like the docents, I am a volunteer.  This project is something I've undertaken because of my interest in Anne's project, the KMA, and as an experiment in writing a weekly article.  My interest is genuine, and my obligation is of my own choosing, however, at times  I also have the feeling of checking my visit off my list.  Check. Bobbins wound.  What next?  But like many things that begin as obligations, I find I remember why I undertake them through the process.  I, too, find therapy in the accumulating thread.  This week, I wound tranquil turquoise, green and flaxen yellow.  Renewed, I moved on to the next thing.

(This week I took pictures of my bobbins and all the other bobbin boxes in the factory.  They become evidence of personality.  I love that.  Perhaps more on this idea next week.)

 

 

Challenge

Yesterday, I found that it was Tuesday.  Over a week from my last blog post, which means last week came and went without having wound a single bobbin, or sat down to write some reflection upon doing so.  Off I went.  Perhaps in an effort to regain momentum, or in an effort to lend some color to the gray day that was hanging over Knoxville, or to fulfill my promise to not only wind bobbins of soft, heathery, muted colors I went straight over to the spool table and picked the brightest color I saw.  Vermilion.  Shiny, rich, vermilion.  I wound four or five bobbins of that, then some yellow, then green, then a mix of red and orange.
This arresting mix of colors was actually a bit difficult to come by, as it appeared that many of the bright colors had been used up, and there seemed to be many more of the soft, grayish, pinkish colors, which I usually favor.   

Next week I'll be able to sink into those soft colors.

I don't know if it was because I felt like I was playing catch up, or because I was picking these bold colors, but yesterday's winding was not the meditation I have previously fallen into.  I felt hurried and slightly agitated.  My thoughts felt more fleeting and less concrete, but I have been thinking over a couple of things since yesterday.
My harried winding made me think of Rapunzel, wondering in anguish how she would wind straw into gold, which made me start thinking about how familiar we are with textile work as a backdrop to our fairy tales, but without the experience to understand that process.  Sleeping Beauty's sleep is preceded by a prick of a spindle, which she is enticed into using, due to her unfamiliarity with the object.  I found myself wondering if a modern sixteen year old would have the fascination to attempt to spin some yarn, just out of curiosity.  If the Local Industry exhibit is any indication, yes.  Each time I am at the museum, a visitor to the museum actively engages in the exhibit, with curiosity and enthusiasm.  Sometimes, these are people familiar and engaged in the textile world already, but most, it appears to me, are finding fascination with a process that has been removed from their vernacular.  It is unknown to me how much these visitors consider the layers of implications that this show presents.  Labor, time, worth, the textile industry, globalization, economy....
All these layers are one of the reasons I became interested in this project, and why I committed to writing this blog.  I felt (and continue to feel) that week after week I would find some new aspects to uncover.  This week, I uncovered challenge.  It was a challenge to get here, considering this third post belonged to the third week of the exhibit.  It was a challenge to deal with colors that I find counter-intuitive and counter-meditative.  It was a challenge to write this post.  And yet, I relish this challenge.  I struggle often to encourage my students to think of art beyond something to please and comfort, to embrace the challenge.  (You can guess how I might describe this effort.)  What I find alluring about being in the Local Industry room, is the levels of challenge.  There are some heavy concepts here.  There is also this beautiful wall of color.  There is this growing bolt of fabric, made by all those who have given freely to this piece.  This exhibit makes room for all of these levels of interest, engagement, and challenge, from the complex contemplation of local versus global, manufactured versus handmade, to the simple pleasure of a rainbow of color.  It is a good lesson for me to heed, and to allow the challenges I embrace to be balanced by the pleasures I take.

Time and Labor

Time and labor.  These unquantifiable properties, that are most often thought of in relation to their value, their measure.  How much time?  How much work? What is all of this worth?  I think about my time and labor often; more often than I would like at times.  As I find my way as a teacher, artist, volunteer, (and like many blooming teachers and artists, server at a local restaurant) I am often asked, either by others or myself to quantify my time, my labor.  It's rare that I feel I'm getting what I deserve monetarily from many of these pursuits, but, it's worth it.  How do I know this?  I don't.  What is interesting about all of these constructs: time, money, labor; is that the value they hold is not inherent, it is assigned.  Not only assigned, but guarded by each of us.  None of us want to waste our time, our work, our worth.
These were among my thoughts I as made my way to the museum yesterday, organizing my "to do" list in my head, and thinking: given how guarded many of us are about sharing our money or time or labor, the willingness of people to volunteer to contribute to this work of art is really quite amazing.

It's funny how experience can confirm your musings.  When I arrived at the museum, the first evidence I saw of volunteer contributions made to the piece, was in the bobbin wall.  It definitely appeared to me to be thicker with more spools of thread.  Also, more telling were the bobbins that, rather than being composed of one thread or analogous threads, were contrasting threads combined on one bobbin, giving subtle spice to the smooth spectrum. 

I also saw depleted quantities of quills, the paper spindles on which the bobbins are wound.  I sat down to create more of these first.  A woman, who was waiting on a group of friends also sat down to make quills with me.  It seemed that her group, part of a weaver's guild, had come to the museum with the task of making quills.  All museum visitors can make quills as well as bobbins, but the process is a bit more finicky, and does not reap the reward of watching the thread build into a colorful little mas
Shortly thereafter, Jason Brown's sculpture class, from UTK came into the exhibit and were led through the bobbin winding process by Chris Molinski.
It was so satisfying to see the whole room filled with participants.  The room is designed very much like a factory, in rows all facing the same direction, so the sounds become hushed small words between people sitting next to one another as they focus on their task.  A friend from the class comes to sit next to me, and like me, he becomes amazed by the whirring thread.  He mentions he'd like to come back and bring friends.
This contrast between the overall construct of this piece: that visitors become laborers, factory workers doing a repetitive task, their small part becoming a colorful stripe in the cloth against the individual experience of creating each bobbin, the meditation that occurs, the focus on a small thread, is such a lovely metaphor.  The key to this balance seems to be the color.  I wonder if we were all endlessly winding gray thread if we would feel the same ownership, the same sense of value in our efforts.
I take a relatively small spool of gray thread from the table and get to winding.  I figure I can probably finish off this spool in the time I've allotted to be at the museum today.  I will test my tolerance for uniformity.  I wind the first bobbin of gray thread.  It's smooth and a good weight and winds smoothly.  I wind two more.  I abandon my experiment.  I need pink. And yellow, and blue. Gray just doesn't seem worth it today.