Weaving Our Way Home
We have officially been in Anacortes for over a year now! About this time in 2024, I signed a lease on a small studio space in Mount Vernon, WA, moved all of my Alexander teaching paraphernalia and some decorations into it, and started sending out emails and networking with people I met in the area. Now, a year later, I am not renewing the studio lease and all of my teaching gear is in our garage, and I’m starting to cast about to see if I might be able to rent a teaching room in a nearby yoga or massage space.
Therefore, I would like to talk about weaving.
Horizontal Bell Celtic pattern on my 4-shaft loom.
Weaving is sometimes used as a metaphor when talking about building community, or working on large projects, or, really, life in general. Lots of disparate bits are brought together to make a harmonious whole. We tie up the loose ends in the tapestry of life, or put warp and weft together to make the fabric of our existence more varied. It’s a lovely image and it has served many writers and thinkers well. However, I’ve been doing some actual weaving lately, and I have two thoughts to share that go against the…grain.
Weaving terminology is aggressive. You sley the reed, make sure the yarn is raddled, throw the shuttle, and beat the cloth as it’s forming. Fiber crafts are supposed to be calming but sometimes I wonder about how these terms evolved. Sley and slay appear to have a common root word, in fact!
Weaving takes time. Winding the warp and dressing the loom (all those previous violent words are summed up as “dressing’, incidentally) can take longer than the actual weaving, and it’s not uncommon to have to undo a bit of weaving to fix a mistake. If you want a nice piece of fabric to wear or to hang on a wall, it’s going to take a while.
I found this on Etsy, so I’m not the only one thinking that crafting can be a little violent sometimes!
What’s the connection with my studio? It seems that growing an Alexander Technique teaching practice is not going to serendipitously happen with a few chance meetings or targeted emails. It’s going to take a judicious bit of aggressive communication on my part, and it’s going to take time.
