Attacking Inspiration

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
--Jack London via Linda Ligon

I’m working on a book of rigid heddle patterns, ideas, and designs which Interweave Press will publish in 2010. I’ve set mini deadlines for myself so I can keep on track. It’s the only way I can manage a big project like this—which means I can’t sit around starring at my loom for too long. I have to keep working until an idea presents itself. I think the words of Jack London pretty much sums up how I’m feeling these days.

Hope and Patience

I feel that we've been waiting for today for a long time. I greet this day with hope, as many do. But, while I feel that President Obama is the right person for this time, I also know that there is hard work ahead. Not just for him, but for all of us. Change is often hard and takes time. Fixing what's broken will be difficult.

We as weavers and spinners are fortunate. Through our crafts we know patience We've puzzled out a threading error or put in countless hours spinning spider-web thin yarn. We've worked out our tangles and twists; we've found calm in the storm. There is power, control, in creating with your own hands, of forming something unique and personal. More than ever, I find comfort in my craft and hope you do as well.

Secretary of the Arts--Petition now

I just received the notice below from Gregg Johnson urging all art-and-craft-inclined folk to petition online for Secretary of the Arts in the new Obama administration. Even though we are in a difficult financial period when it may seem easier to forgo the arts, it is exactly times like this that they can lift our spirits.

From Gregg:
Quincy Jones has started a petition to ask President-Elect Obama to appoint a Secretary of the Arts. While many other countries have had Ministers of Art or Culture for centuries, The United States has never created such a position. We in the arts need this and the country needs the arts--now more than ever. Please take a moment to sign this important petition and then pass it on to your friends and colleagues.

www.petitiononline.com/esnyc/petition.html

Linen Towels

During the Cold War of the 1950’s, while the US was building bombs in preparation for the nuclear holocaust to come, Sweden prepared for the impending disaster by weaving linen towels for use in hospitals—thousands and thousands of them. In the past 50 some years, they have been stored away in boxes, and only recently were offered for sale in a Swedish outlet store. My friends Steve and Nancy Denkin (of Unicorn Books) acquired several boxes, this particular set woven in 1957. The towels, tightly woven in point twill and crisply starched and pressed, are beautiful in their simplicity. Was it a Swedish folly to weave all these towels that were never used? Better towels, than bombs, I say.