A great introductory article about the Weaving Wagon in the Westender, June 2017. Thanks Amy Logan!
http://www.westender.com/arts-culture/artists-weave-a-wagon-with-hyper-local-materials-1.20553425
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Good news! our first grant application for Land & Sea was successful — a big thank you to the City of Vancouver for funding the first stage of this project, which will allow Kamala Todd, Tracy Williams, Lori Snyder, Kelty Jean McKerracher, Sharon and me to explore working with nettle fibre and fish leather.
And many of you are thinking: “…fish…. leather? …. (ew)”
A fellow that I worked with a long time ago had a fish leather wallet and he raved about its durability. Sharon’s friend Peter Ananin from Scotland has a fish leather tannery as a social enterprise. Tracy Williams says that in the old days, people would make shoes out of fish leather and coat the soles in sand and pitch — and a friend of Sharon’s sent us a photo of a pair of traditional fish-leather snow boots she saw at a museum in Japan.
Turns out that making leather out of fish skins is a very old, worldwide practice — and though it’s uncommon, it’s still going on today. Crazy what a search on Youtube will turn up — references to everything from post-WWII Europe to contemporary Kenya, and beyond.
We used salmon skins from a commercial kitchen as a medium for practice at our Tanning Circle in February; and except for the fact that they were thin skins and we probably under-tanned them with the alum (I got the chance to speak with Meg Cur of Crows Nest Wildcraft about it), it was a really fascinating experience with compelling results. My subsequent tests (shown in the bottom two photos in the featured collage) have been even more intriguing: the same skins from February are about twice as thick and tough, now that they’ve had the chance to sit in a tannin bath for a few months.
I look forward to experimenting with a variety of fish skins from Skipper Otto’s Community Supported Fishery, one of our partners on the Land & Sea project; and using the skins in a series of fish-leather-tanning workshops we’ll be rolling out in the fall/winter — keep your eyes open for that announcement.
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We sat around Sharon’s table in November and talked about this; we wrote it in our books and scheduled around it for months; and then we discussed logistics for weeks ahead of time.
And yet… it still seemed unbelievable that we were going to go away to a beautiful place to study weaving with a master and collaborate on an awesome project for an entire week.Sharon, Martin and I drove up with the Weaving Wagon chassis and Sharon’s bike in the back of my truck — yes, it would have been cool to have biked up and all, but it would have taken us two days each way, leaving only three for weaving. Geoff, hale and hearty, showed us how it’s done by riding his bike all the way from Vancouver to Hornby in one day — and even stopping off at the Metal Supermarket in Nanaimo on the way.
As it turned out, we needed all five weaving days: the first day was slow as we discussed the design of the wickerwork, and then Alastair started training Sharon and I to weave flat… and straight… and square… while he and Geoff and Martin started work on the fittings we needed to get the willow panels onto the metal chassis.
Then we worked 10-12 hours on the next four days in a row, and were darn lucky that both Martin and Geoff were there too. Geoff came prepared to fiddle with the details of the interface between the weaving and the metal work, but he had to leave after two days; and without Martin — whose official role on the project is film documentary, but is such a polymath (and the son of a machinist) that he was indispensable in drilling and fitting parts — I don’t like to think about how long those last two days may have been.
Not to say we didn’t have a few good laughs — Geoff scored a new bathrobe at Hornby’s legendary Free Store, and we all got a kick out of Sharon vacuuming aluminum filings out of the lawn (notoriously house-proud). Martin put in his time at the drill press, but was able to get out and see a lot of the island, and come back to tell us about it. I didn’t mind not seeing much of the island — I was there for the weaving anyway.
By Sunday evening we were in the final stretch: ranging on the last side panel; the aluminum reinforcing bar put in place; bordering off; and then just the cable supports for the side panels being difficult.
AT LAST — the test rides. Assessment: good.
We packed it back on the truck in the gathering gloom under the trees — and though Alastair’s preternatural eye for perfection seemed to be even BETTER in the dark (he saw that I had unwittingly switched from a 3.1 to a 2.1 border on one panel) — we were pleased.
Back in the city, the Weaving Wagon is turning out to be everything we’d hoped for in a pop-up studio/ pick-up truck/ tea service cart, and we’ve already had it out about three times in the first week since we’ve had it. We already have more grand plans for accessorizing it….
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If doing more weaving is on your summer bucket list (you have to practice, after all, if you want to be able to make yourself an awesome hat like us) then check in with our Calendar — we’ll be hosting free drop-in Open Studio Weaving Circles starting June 20, 6-8:30pm.
Bring your own projects, supplies & tools, or join in a collaborative project, and come to share skills and good company with other makers.
Can’t make it on a Tuesday? no problem… the Open Studio nights shift around every week, so check the calendar
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Steel or aluminum? What kind of wheels? brakes? feet? hitch? bottom panel? We want it to be “visually stunning”, but we also need it to be light, and durable, and safe, and reasonable to take out in the rain, and be able to hold tools and materials, and what will happen when we load it with willow standing upright, and shouldn’t the side panels fold down like counter space for tools and tea service….?
With researching and sourcing parts and materials, Geoff has been under pressure — the chassis has to be ready for us to take to Hornby in late May, for our scheduled week with Alastair. The number of design decisions involved in making a ‘first-of-a-kind’ is daunting; and we’ve all had to come to terms with the fact that there are many things we can only guess about, because we have no experience to guide us. Alastair also has a very practical mind, as well as experience with welding and metal fabrication, so he and Geoff have been able to talk through many of the finer points via email threads (which were semi-comprehensible by Sharon and Rebecca).
Geoff did all the cutting and Sharon helped with sanding the aluminum pieces for the frame. Geoff was pleased to get the chance to work with Toby’s Cycle Works for bending the aluminum top bars, and with an aluminum welder (a lady welder!) for the welding.
I think it’s a tribute to Geoff’s precision in cutting that it only took 2 hours to complete all the welding — and a tribute to the welder that the tidiness of the joints was one of the first things that Alastair commented on 😉
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We exhausted all our leads to find someone with a very tame, easy-going pet sheep to come in for a shearing demo, so we could host our very own ‘sheep to shawl’ event for FORAGE (yes, that’s a real thing). We did finally meet someone with a friendly sheep; but in the end, a shortage of good skilled shearers scuttled the project. Thank you to our friends who expressed concern for the animalsThen we had a light bulb moment: we’re ‘gleaners’, why not focus on what we have around us?
So in the morning, Nicola led a great class on skirting, picking and washing sheep fleeces, as well as spinning on a drop spindle; and then we spent the afternoon exploring the wonders of the URBAN fibre shed: dogs, horses (hair from the race track), and even some guinea pigs!
Below is the flyer that we made to promote the ‘Community Groom & Spin-Along’
As always, big gratitude to our friends at Vancouver Parks and Recreation.
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The FORAGE April: Yellow Flag Iris (Iris pseudacorus) workshop could have been billed as ‘underwater basket weaving’ – but man did we have fun!! Thanks to the 12 brave souls who came and cut back invasive yellow flag iris and harvested roots for dye. And special thanks to Kari and Stanley Park Ecology Society, and Vancouver Park Board!The growing season here has been so delayed by the months of snow and freezing temperatures, and the steady rain and cooler temperatures throughout March and into April, that most of the iris is only about half as high as it usually is at this time of year. It’s a bit like ‘limp celery’ right now, but we trust that it will be nice for weaving once it’s been dried and then resoaked. The late summer and early fall is the best time to gather the leaves for weaving, when they are as long and fibrous as they’re going to get; but since our foraging needs to dovetail with the existing invasive-species management practices of the stewards of the land, the spring is when we often find ourselves gathering this generous (albeit unwelcome) plant. Scroll down the Video Resources Page to find the video about yellow flag iris produced for the Urban Weaver Studio Project.
In place of the green iris leaves, which are too fresh to use for weaving right after harvest, we practiced twined basket starts using English ivy (Hedera helix) on red osier dogwood sticks. Red osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera) is an indigenous species that’s often planted in parks as part of perennial landscaping because of its gorgeous red limbs. According to Nancy J. Turner, it was a traditional weaving material for many of the First Nations of British Columbia, especially favoured for food implements and fish traps and weirs. Clippings can often be found at this time of year as the plants are pruned back.
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Twelve hearty and brave souls came to work with us for our first FORAGE: Seasonal Fibre Series date on March 8, and had the bonus of an indoor space last minute! (Little did we know at the time that March rainfall would break records…)
The day included harvesting English ivy, splitting, debarking, making rope and a quick intro to the Turks Head knot — an intriguing new skill shared with us by new friend and ancestral skills practitioner Michael Mayer, and something we’ve never tried before with ivy.
Sharon’s work with English ivy as a medium began in 2009, with her partnership with the Stanley Park Ecology Society on The Ivy Project, a restoration initiative partly in response to the devastating windstorm in the winter of 2006. English ivy became the focus of the Urban Weaver Studio Project at the MacLean Park Fieldhouse 2012-2015, one of Vancouver Park Board’s most successful Fieldhouse Residencies. The Urban Weaver Studio quickly consolidated a nucleus of committed artists and weavers; EartHand’s artistic director, Rebecca Graham, first met Sharon at a Saturday afternoon session, and there are many more examples like this. Though activity has fallen off in recent years, the Urban Weaver Facebook Group includes over 250 members; most of us are local, but we also have some weavers from elsewhere, including internationally renowned Tim Johnson from Europe — who once said that he found it ironic that we have so much ivy that we throw it away, because it’s one of his favourite weaving materials!
Though the Urban Weaver Studio Project closed at the end of its Fieldhouse term, the spirit of inquiry and relationship with English ivy continues through EartHand and projects such as FORAGE: Seasonal Fibre Series. Special thanks to Kari and Stanley Park Ecology Society for hosting us, and Vancouver Park Board Arts Culture and Environment Department for supporting the program.The next FORAGE: Seasonal Fibre Series is April 8th in Stanley Park, exploring Yellow Flag Iris — reserve your spot on Eventbrite.
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Skipper Otto’s Community Supported Fishery is one of our partners for the Land & Sea project; Sonia Strobel, co-founder and Managing Director, recently forwarded this to us, an excerpt from Nick Claxton’s writing about his community’s successful reef net fishery revival:
The WSÁNEC people successfully governed their traditional fisheries for thousands of years, prior to contact. This was not just because there were laws and rules in place, and that everybody followed them, but there was also a different way of thinking about fish and fishing, which included a profound respect. At the end of the net, a ring of willow was woven into the net, which allowed some salmon to escape. This is more than just a simple act of conservation (the main priority and narrow vision of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans). It represents a profound respect for salmon. It was believed that the runs of salmon were lineages, and if some were allowed to return to their home rivers, then those lineages would always continue. The WSÁNEC people believe that all living things were once people, and they are respected as such. The salmon are our relatives. … Out of respect, when the first large sockeye was caught, a First Salmon Ceremony was conducted. This was the WSÁNEC way to greet and welcome the king of all salmon. The celebration would likely last up to ten days. … Taking time to celebrate allowed for a major portion of the salmon stocks to return to their rivers to spawn, and to sustain those lineages or stocks.
Nicholas Xumthoult Claxton, “ ISTÁ SĆIÁNEW, ISTÁ SXOLE: ‘To Fish as Formerly:’ The Douglas Treaties and the WSÁNEĆ Reef-Net Fisheries.” In Lighting the Eighth Fire: The Liberation, Resurgence, and Protection of Indigenous Nations, ed. Leanne Simpson. Winnepeg, Arbeiter Ring, 2008. 54-55.
If you are interested to learn more about First Nations perspectives on fisheries, please visit the extensive site for Indigenous Foundations at UBC
EartHand Gleaners Society 