The last post

So, this past Thursday, I made my last visit to the Anne Wilson show.  I had hoped to make it back to watch the weaving being tied off the loom, but alas a spring cold interfered and my last time winding was my last time in the exhibit.  It was different from my other experiences.  This was the first visit when no other visitor was winding at the same time as was I.  I also felt myself trying to stick to my previous post's resolution to work in a more meditative way, and focus less on the production.  As I wound, I realized that the bobbins I made would definitely not be used in the weaving.  This was a somewhat startling recognition.  Previously, although I realized that there was no guarantee that my bobbins would get woven into the large weaving, they held the potential to be a part of this piece.  In this case, knowing that I was working near the end of the day, and that the weaver was working on the closing rows of weft just as I wound my bobbins, I knew that these bobbins would not make it into the weaving.  It was a strange feeling of futility.  Through my conversations with Anne, I have some knowledge that the bobbins will be re-purposed in some way, either by her, or by someone to whom the bobbins are donated, somewhere, however this future is unknown and uncertain.   I wondered, if on the last day a factory is open, how the workers adjust their attitudes.  It seems that it would be easy to give into the futility, stop working, give up early.  It also seems that there is a dignity to continuing through the process regardless of the certain future.  So, I shrugged off the uncertain future of my bobbins and tried to enjoy the last moments of this process.  This activity, that for the past 15 weeks has occupied a small part of my week, but a large part of my life.  This project has given me many realizations, about my own work, and about my process.  It has been invaluable to sit down and reflect, to form my disjointed musings into complete paragraphs.  I am thankful to those who followed these posts, and I am thankful have been a part of the community that came together to complete this amazing piece set in motion by Anne Wilson.

Bobbins and Easter Eggs

When I was a child, I loved dying Easter eggs.  My family was not particularly religious, and the activity was much more about the craft than the holiday.  We would spend hours gathered around the dining room table, each dying a handful of eggs.  Wax resists, masking tape stencils, multiple dye baths with eggs immersed for varying times were employed to make each egg unique and complex.  Later, as a college student, I helped my roommate set up an egg dying party for a few of the kids she babysat.  I hadn't dyed eggs in years and I was looking forward to the afternoon I had set aside.  Little did I know that very few families dye eggs with the same dedication that had been cultivated in my family.  That afternoon, two dozen eggs were plopped in and out of the dye cups and the table abandoned within a matter of minutes.  I was shocked, and slightly horrified. 
I was thinking about this occurrence as I wound bobbins this past Easter Sunday.  As you may note, time has been flying by in my world, making my weekly blog a little less weekly than I had anticipated.  And, while I still enjoy each visit to the Local Industry exhibit, I have found that my proficiency in winding bobbins has almost diminished the mesmerizing effect they once had.  I can wind quickly, plopping my bobbins into the collection tub much like the plop, plop, plop of quickly dyed eggs.  In some regards, this is perhaps a desired effect.  All visitors are workers in the factory to create this large piece of cloth, and my repeated experience, my commitment to this blog, gives me some sensation of "clocking in".  Perhaps in the coming weeks I will attempt to savor the last few weeks of this exhibit, to revert back to my meditative nature within this space, because all visitors are also collaborators in this exhibit.  They have free choice over the colors they wind, the combination of threads they choose, the amount they contribute.  As I overheard one child remark on Sunday, "It's like being an artist."  Duly noted.