EartHand Gleaners Society

art ~ ecology ~ people

  • Linen Growers’ Club: March

    What brought you here? Are you a gardener or a spinner already, or are you new to it? Where are you going to grow your flax?
    IMG_20170307_190142-COLLAGE

    Turns out that we’re a mix of growers and makers, and will be growing our flax at sites all over Coast Salish Territory and beyond; we’ll have a tremendous diversity of stricks to add to the linen reference library at the end of the season. Flax is easy to grow and very forgiving of a range of conditions; but the colour, length, and qualities of the fibre are all affected.

    Many folks in the class were new to the practice of spinning; we started off with brand-new drop spindles and beautifully prepared linen tow sliver from Taproot Fibre Lab in Nova Scotia. Sharon taught the basic ‘park and draft’ technique, and we owe thanks to Penny and Billy for volunteering to join us in our large group to work with folks individually as needed. Rebecca, who started spinning three years ago, brought her spinning sample collection to prove that practice does indeed pay off over time.

  • A Little History on Flax to Linen

    Almost thirty years ago in 1989, Mavis Atton’s book Flax Culture: from flower to fabric was published by Ginger Press, a chronicle of Atton’s experiments growing and producing hand spun flax in Georgian Bay, Ontario. A few years later, Linda Heinrich of Vancouver Island wrote The Magic of Linen, a result of the extensive research she did for her Master Spinners Certificate; this book is still the go-to reference for growing, processing and spinning linen by hand and its second edition, retitled Linen: from flax seed to woven cloth, was released in 2010.

    Pat Davidson, a spinner on Saltspring Island, has been growing flax for linen since the 1990’s and was a key mentor both for the Victoria Flax to Linen group and for us in Vancouver. The Victoria group began growing flax for linen in 2010 as part of the Transition Victoria movement; subsequently, the project took on a life of its own and the group became Flax to Linen Victoria, with their own website and a very active Facebook page that draws members from around the world.

    In late 2012, Penny Coupland applied for and received a Vancouver Foundation Grant to buy seed and inputs to grow flax for linen and hire another maker to build the processing equipment here in Vancouver. Starting in 2013, partnering with Caitlin ffrench, they grew flax at Means of Production Garden and at the MacLean Park Fieldhouse and blogged about it as a ‘grow along’ for the Urban Weaver Studio Project; Penny later moved the blog to Urban Cloth Project. Concurrently in 2013, Caitlin and Sharon Kallis grew flax as the Aberthau Flax=Fibre+Food Project at West Point Grey Community Centre; and Julia Ostertag, a PhD student in the department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at UBC, grew flax as part of her thesis. Sharon and Julia both visited the Flax to Linen Victoria group for mentorship in growing and processing; and Sharon also connected with Pat Davidson.

    Sometime around then, Patricia Bishop at Taproot Farms in Nova Scotia began her quest to also address local fibre needs by recreating small-scale fully mechanized flax-to-linen processing equipment; Taproot Fibre Lab now runs a small linen-processing mill and builds their equipment for sale.

    In 2014, Rebecca Graham and Brian Jones took over the Flax=Fibre+Food Project, growing more ‘Marylin’ variety and also several varieties of wheat and oats for traditional wheat weaving. Rebecca and Sharon visited with members of Flax to Linen Victoria again, and Rebecca connected with Julia Ostertag from UBC. Sharon Kallis, Tracy Williams and Mirae Rosner, inspired by a comment from a participant in the flax projects, expanded their focus on the idea of ‘urban cloth’ in the Terroir: Urban Cloth Project.

    EartHand continued to grow flax at Trillium North Park and to mentor others in flax growing through 2015 and 2016. Susan Gerofsky at UBC Orchard Garden, the site of Julia Ostertag’s project, also continued to grow flax. Using daughter seed from the 2014 ‘Marilyn’ crop at Aberthau Flax=Fibre+Food, Rebecca grew a 10×10 plot of flax at a friend’s farmstead outside of Squamish in 2015; and, using the granddaughter seed, another plot at the Fraser Common Farm in 2016. All those crops have been successfully retted and processed into stricks, and spinning is underway. EartHand maintains a flax ‘reference library’ of sample stricks representing each crop year and location.

    In 2017, EartHand launched the Linen Growers’ Club, a closed cohort of growers and makers who will meet monthly from March through September to grow flax at their own sites and process it into linen together.

  • The Weaving Wagon: Concept & Early Design

    Last summer I got back from the Yukon and Sharon and I were having our more-or-less weekly work meeting. We had a conversation that went something like this:

    -“I want to weave BIG. I’m going to ask Alastair if he’ll teach me. I want to weave a bike trailer.”
    – “Do you want to do that by yourself? … or… would it be something you’d like to work on together?”
    – “Oh! I hadn’t thought of that. I just want to do it. I don’t really mind how it happens.”
    – “Because I had been thinking something similar; I want EartHand to have a woven bike trailer that we can use as a pop-up studio…. ”

    The next few things happened like magic: we found out that a woven bike trailer could qualify for a BC Arts Council production grant; Sharon happened to meet Geoff Hibbard, who  works as the mechanic, designer and bike cart builder for Vancouver’s premier electric tricycle company,  Shift Delivery , and  when we got in touch to float the idea by Alastair Heseltine, we found out he was going to be in town and could meet with us in person.

    Our initial meeting over beers around Sharon’s kitchen table resulted in a very exciting sheet of brown paper with a lot of notes on it. 20161110_213030

    And shortly afterwards, we finished the grant application for a BC Arts Council Production Grant in Sharon’s name.

    We’re still waiting to hear about whether that grant application was successful, but thanks to funding from the Vancouver Park Board: Arts Culture and Environment, we’ve been able to move ahead with the design and fabrication of the chassis. We’ll keep you posted!

    20161110_214540-COLLAGE.jpg

  • Creative Reuse: Textile Waste and Contemporary Design

    Oh, to be able to fly to New York for the weekend for this TSA event! Wonder when they’ll start putting these things out as live-stream webinars?

    For the meantime, I’ll have to satisfy myself with digging up the links to the designers and exhibits they mention:

    Green Eileen  The eco-advocate arm of vertically-integrated retailer Eileen Fischer accepts donations of its own gently-used clothing, which it then resells or uses in up cycling workshops, or for creating up cycled yarns and who knows what else (which is why I’d pay to go on the TSA field trip and their recycling centre myself!).

    This is a pretty daring business model and I’m deeply impressed they’re pulling it off. I worked for a vertically-integrated retailer that was attempting to do something like this about seven years ago, but didn’t quite pull it off before they had to close for other reasons.

    Scraps: Fashion, Textiles & Creative Reuse  This exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum takes a look at three designers with completely different business models who are using pre- and post-consumer recycled textiles (pre- means that the textiles are from manufacturing offcuts and waste; post- means that they’ve already had one lifetime as someone’s shirt, tea towel, etc). I like that the curators included  the preservation of local craft traditions” as a key factor in reducing the footprint of the textile and fashion industries.

    Working with second-hand and scrap materials has a lot in common with working with natural materials: when I harvest a bunch of ivy or sticks, or my family’s old clothes too worn out to be donated, I don’t get to sit down and start making; there’s an entire, overlooked process of sorting and preparing by hand that needs to take place before the making can begin. This is the difference between buying a bag salad at the grocery store versus harvesting greens from your own garden, which, event after months of anticipation and care, still arrive in your kitchen kind of gritty and unsorted. It’s pretty amazing to see these designers who are finding niches where the gritty sorting and re-making can be economically viable. We must also keep in mind, though, that until we pay something more like the true environmental costs for the cheap clothes we wear, these examples of contemporary design involving recycling and up cycling will remain niches only.

    In Vancouver, we can find a few local designers who are up cycling and recycling — check out Adhesif Clothing on Main, and Jola V Designs and Erin Templeton for leather goods. There are always new eco-labels cropping up… and sadly, also fading away.

    UPDATE: Craft Council of BC is hosting an exhibition of the work of Dawn Michelle Russell called ‘Thirteen to Zero’, exploring zero-waste clothing designs from handwoven/dyed fabrics
    Exhibition opens March 23, and runs until May 4 at the Craft House Gallery on Granville Island

    Anyway, I love this quote I saw on a poster at Value Village, the global thrift-shop empire: “The most sustainable clothing is the stuff that’s already made.” I also love this little art installation/ video they made to show textile waste in North America:

    Buy quality, by classic, accessorize with art, and mend!

  • Land & Sea – Grant writing as art practice…

    Land & Sea is our third (!) project grant application so far this year. Sharon and I are hitting our stride as writing collaborators, and making the most of new technology to do it. We’ve evolved a mode of working on the same document simultaneous, watching each others’ cursors flick over the page, bits of text appearing and disappearing as we think out loud through our little Skype windows on each other. I’ve been accused of being a Luddite, but this way of working feels more natural to me than pen and paper now.

    If we get funding for this project, Tracy Williams, Sharon, me, Lori Snyder, and Kamala Todd will come together to form a body of research work on materials and techniques that is guided by First Nations sensibilities and concerns; host Weaving~Conversation Circles with community stakeholders; and lead workshops that introduce natural materials and foraging to the broader community in terms of environmental justice. As the impulse towards nature connection grows, we’re aiming to find a way of tempering genuine, but often uncritical, enthusiasm for foraging and all things ‘rewilded’ with a more sophisticated understanding of its social and environmental implications.

     

  • Linen Growers Club 2017

    Linen Growers Club

    SOLD OUT
    First Tuesday of the month from March through September, 6-8pm

    Register online through Homestead Junction

    Do you have an interest in gardening or textiles? EartHand Gleaners Society is thrilled to partner with Homestead Junction for the Linen Growers Club. A chance to grow your own small flax crop for linen, learn how to spin with a drop spindle, have support through the process and share results with others in the group.

    Meeting once a month, we will cover spinning, soil preparation, sowing, weeding, harvest and how to process the flax straw into linen. Flax for linen is an easy-to-grow crop requiring full sun and 100 days from seed to harvest.  Soil, water, light, microclimate and processing all affect the quality and feel of the resulting linen. The club will do a “fibre sample swap” at the end, giving everyone a sample book of 2017 linen.

    First four sessions include seasonal instructions for the month ahead and spinning time. The final three sessions take participants through the process of harvest, retting, rippling, breaking, scutching and hackling at Trillium Park’s demo crop and outdoor studio.

    Cost includes seeds, a drop spindle, local linen fibre and Taproot Nova Scotia’s fibre for workshop spinning and access to equipment at processing times.

    Seeds provided for a plot size up to 16 ft sq per person.

    A final open studio day allows additional processing time at the end of season.

    Additional  processing day: Saturday 9 September 12-4pm @ Trillium North Park

    Locations:

    March 7 @ Homestead Junction 649 E. Hastings St, Vancouver

    April 4, May 2, June 6, July 4, Aug 1, Sept 5 & 9@ Trillium North Park– corner of Malkin and Thornton Street, Vancouver

    About the Instructors: Rebecca Graham and Sharon Kallis have been growing linen in small Vancouver plots or larger out-of-city places since 2013, and have lots to share about growing a successful fibre crop. This is the first time they have offered a grow-along workshop and participants will have the opportunity to learn with each other in this friendly and supportive club. Visit Earthand.com for more information about their projects

    Fee: 195.00

    REGISTER through Homestead Junction

    Limited space, early registration encouraged!

     

  • Looking back on 2016

    A little visual love song for all our board members and dedicated super volunteers, all our colleagues and comrades and fans — it’s a pleasure to be dancing with you in the wild spaces beyond art, land and culture.

    Here’s to a great year in 2017!EartHand Gleaners Society

  • Soil to Sky Video

    Soil to Sky  as our main research and community project  for the year wrapped up in November of 2016 and we are thrilled to share the video documentation that Martin Borden created on our behalf.

    Soil to Sky from Martin Borden on Vimeo.

    Thank you to everyone who came and participated, particularly our  Lab research leaders and participants and of course our funders: BC Arts Council, City of Vancouver and Vancouver Park Board.

  • Weaving Wagon Introduction

    The Weaving Wagon will be EartHand’s  pop-up studio and pick up truck, a hybrid of cutting-edge bicycle-based transport and traditional woven willow carts. Geoff Hibbard, with an engineering education and co-founder of Shift Delivery, is designing the chassis;  Alastair Heseltine will be overseeing our weaving of the body; and Martin Borden will be documenting the process on film.

    Riding a bike during rush hour at the end of July in beach season, riding past Kits beach, riding faster than the cars are moving. My bike is loaded down with large armfuls of green, freshly harvested flax that will be turned into linen. Imagine how the mini field of green in my view contrast strongly with the street sounds, glaring reflections off metal surfaces and the smell of car exhaust through which I rode.

    In that moment in 2013 I was a bucolic agricultural vision juxtaposed against the dense urban environment. The effect galvanized others; people stopped in the midst of crossing the road or rolled down windows at red lights to ask, to talk. What was I carrying? And on a bike! And then the conversation, linen?  Linen is a plant?

    It was after this particular commute from a project that I realized that my commute is not just a mundane pragmatic choice but a social interaction, an unfolding performance that plays a role in breaking down the country/city schism that Le Corbusier outlined so rigidly in his idealist city planning models and that we now try and escape through community gardens and the urban food-growing movement. And, if breaking down stereotypes of country and city, why not blend medieval travel methods like a woven ox cart with urban green delivery technology?

    How can I extend and repeat the performative, social interaction of that bike ride, a daily commute carrying local agricultural crops- so people keep stopping to talk at lights and when I park?

    The Weaving Wagon has to be jaw-dropping in scope. Visual splendour that is theatre, the backdrop and the costume to its own performance of movement on wheels, it also has to be extremely high functioning to serve the purpose of travel down city streets attached to an electric bike.

  • FORAGE: A Seasonal Fibre Series 2017

    Second Saturday of the Month, March through October 2017

    Eight opportunities for gathering, learning, and making in tune with the land. Each session will be a profile of a different local fibre, including how to harvest and prepare it and ways to work with it. We’ll explore different traditional hand skills that are the foundation of many weaving techniques.

    Sponsored by Vancouver Park Board: Arts Culture and Engagement Dept.

    Offered in partnership with Stanley Park Ecology Society and Environmental Youth Alliance.

    MARCH: ivy/split @ Stanley Park

    APRIL: flag iris/twine @ Stanley Park

    MAY: wool/spin @ Trillium North Park
    ** UPDATE! 10am-12pm will be washing raw wool fleece, fibre prep & spinning for people with tickets (get tickets at the link below!)
    12 noon til 3 we’ll be joined by fluffy neighbourhood dogs and other urban animal fibres for an urban fibre shed Spinneree!

    JUNE: blackberry/braid @ Stanley Park

    JULY: straw/coil @ Trillium North Park

    AUGUST: flax/break @ Trillium North Park

    SEPTEMBER: nettle/knot@Trillium North Park

    OCTOBER: daylily/twist @ Means of Production Garden

    FREE monthly program, but pre-registration required, tickets released 6 weeks before program date.

    Register on EVENTBRITE

    PLEASE have respect for others, do not sign up for a program and not show up.