Weaving: A Wooly Dream

Amid the slurping sound of melting snow being sucked down sewer drains there has been MUCH tinkering! This gobbildeegook of cord and yarn are the beginnings of what will *hopefully* be a fabulous fibers project! We're using a coiling technique (a type of basket weaving) to create three dimensional forms. My professor keeps assuring us that everyone can weave, since after all it is a survival skill our ancient ancestors developed for building containers, clothing and shelter. I am certainly glad to live in this millennium--I can hardly handle this with paper cording and yarn. I can't imagine trying to do detail work with pointy reeds while mosquitoes the size of birds are trying to take a drink off of you...Yikes.


I decided to use the initial coiling shape to inform my project. I'm gleaning the idea of "The Dream Time" from my aboriginal art history course. While doing the initial doodling for this piece, the phrase "I had the most wonderful dream" floated into my psyche. Oooh, I don't know where that came from, but it's too good to ignore!

I'd like the piece to be about movement, the primal and universal symbol of the spiral as beginning and end, the act of Dreaming something into being, capture a sort of swiRling energy. There will be other elements added to the fiber coiling like photographs, beads and starched cheesecloth. I'll be sure to keep you posted on the slow but steady progress of my Wooly Universe. (It's adorable, my professor can't pronounce the word "wool" with her thick Korean accent. Instead she refers to it as "fur of sheep"--I almost shot milk out of my nose. Love it.) For now, I'm off to work on some ideation for my printmaking class and read chapter six of Secrets of Highly Creative Women!

How are your creative projects coming along, my pretties?

Merry Making, Friends!~*