Spin Me a Yarn - March 2012
We spun two kinds of yarns - fibers and stories - and experienced how both are interwoven into cultures around the world at Spin Me A Yarn, the first createIt@ARTSgarage sesson for 2012.
Anna Zinsmeister introduced us to spinning fibers - demonstrating thigh, stick, and drop spindle techniques. She explained that whether by the human hand or by machine, all spinning pulls the fibers and adds twist. Anna showed us yarns she had spun, as well as twined and woven items she’d made with her beautiful handspun yarns. We thumbed through Respect the Spindle, a book by Abby Franquemont, who first learned to spin while living in Peru and has several spinning videos on YouTube, including one on basic spinning techniques.
Then storytellers Rahab Mitchell and Audrey Kopp spun another kind of yarn - sharing fiber-themed stories with us!
Rahab Mitchell, in character as “Grandma Sally” shooed aside her chickens and spun stories of growing up in the sawmill quarters during boom period of timber cutting - in Sweet Homes, Arkansas. As Rahab describes Sally, “Because she is a folk teller, she mixed real life events with those taken from the Bible in hopes of inspiring families to reflect on the role fiber plays in everyday life. Sails for tall ships held by wooden masts, the perils of timber men, the tale of how lil'David whipped the bully giant with a sling made from fiber and a hard rock! The up side and down side to women with looms, crafty minds and influence -- from Eve to the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31 and of course the sad end Samson faced when his hair, woven by Delilah, was used to bind him momentarily, but later he lost his strength when he told her where his true power came from…spinning tales as you say.”
Audrey Kopp put her own spin on three classic fiber tales. From ancient Greece comes the story of Arachne, a skilled weaver who bragged that her work rivaled the weaving of the goddess Athena. It doesn’t end well when you challenge a goddess… In a subsequent contest Arache’s skills were indeed superb, but Athena was furious that the images in Arachne’s weavings ridiculed the Gods. Athena turned her into a spider and her descendants are weavers to this day. (Arachnids, anyone?) In The Crane Wife, a Japanese folktale, a man nurses a crane back to health and releases it. Later a woman appears, they fall in love and marry. She weaves beautiful silk fabric for him to sell, but makes him promise never to watch her weave. The man breaks his promise and discovers his wife is really the crane – she has been plucking her own feathers and weaving with them. The crane leaves, never to return… Anait is an Armenian story about a young peasant woman who is an accomplished weaver. A prince falls in love with her, but she won’t marry him until he learns a trade, as “a prince can always become a pauper.” Smitten, he learns to weave, and so Anait agrees to marry him. Later in the story he is captured and held prisoner, but is able to send her a secret message woven into a rug, and so is rescued!
We finished up spinning wool with sticks and experienced how fiber becomes yarn. Anna had made it appear effortless, but we quickly discovered the skill involved when we tried it ourselves. We were reminded that in many cultures very young children are taught to spin - and become quite proficient. With practice, so would we. I envision a class of Los Angeles pre-schoolers learning fiber stories from around the globe and confidently walking around their playground spinning yarn on their own drop spindles!
createIt@ARTSgarage offers "educators of all stripes" an opportunity to nurture our own creativity through collaborative work. We use the fiber arts as our vehicle of expression, working with simple processes and materials on hand in my mid-Wilshire Los Angeles studio. These quarterly peer-to-peer sessions are free of charge and are offered in a spirit of celebratory sharing.