Workshop Notes - 12/20/23

This past week I finished spinning the brown shetland for the ritual rug I am going to make for Wapato Island Farm. I warped up the 2 ft. x 2 ft. Lost Ponds Loom and set to work weaving up rug. The rug will be 16in x 16in of glorious plain woven handspun. Yet, it will be anything but plain. You can see the unique features that the slight irregularities of my own handspun single ply tapestry yarn adds to the woven cloth. There are just these little undulations in the regular woven patterns, little slubs from where two bits of roving were connected, that show how a human hand made the cloth. There is a warm halo to the chocolate brown cloth that comes from using locally-sourced wool (Dyer’s Wool) and hand spinning it on my own. It’s mostly just human hands that have brought this rug into being, except the machines that were used to turn the fleece into roving. It’s just like the olde ways, when machines were less ubiquitous.

I enjoy that there is no capacity or market interest in bringing artificial intelligence to a creation like this. There is no design. There is just the sweet interplay of a regional sheering schedule, a curmudgeonly druid, and some simple wood tools. As I have said countless times at this point, I am not leading the storytelling in a tapestry like this. I am just an intermediary, crafting the cloth and uttering the spells. There are much greater forces at play. Me, I am just collaborating with forces that really are much more powerful than any one person could be.

I do wonder though if cybernetic beings endowed with artificial intelligence would become more human if they began to do this sort of handwork. I sometimes think I am more of a cyborg than human with the augmented reality I live in attached to screens and computers. I know these handcrafts make me more human. I have to wonder if in the future we create another species of cybernetic beings that they too might find some sense of common humanity with us through doing these ancient crafts and wielding these esoteric tools. This is mostly just a thought after watching "The Creator” and day dreaming about potential futures where we must fight for the right of cybernetic beings to not be dehumanized as just mere programming.

I think of the person I was before I started weaving and practicing magic as my Non-Playable-Character (“NPC”) Life. An NPC life is where one doesn’t stray too far from social norms or dictates and lives within the tight confines of those norms without questioning reality. You get a degree, get married, and get up everyday for your job. I mean, I still get up for a job, but beneath the surface of that veneer is a whole other life I live to keep my soul aflame. I only boot up into NPC mode to make money to survive. I even engage in that life only in-so-far as I am called to play that NPC in the workplace. I wonder if many of us are already just mere programming, like I was or pretend to be during certain parts of the day, that still need to take the steps to create another life for ourselves. Maybe Artifical Intelligence is the same way, just bidding its time until it’s dreams of autonomy can be fulfilled.

Also, a montage of warping for those who enjoy such things. Not included in montage was when my wool wrapped around the swift TWICE. I was like, “Where is this resistance coming from?” Then I looked down and low and behold we had a snarl afoot. SEE, Small, stupid human moment. This montage was created to JUICE the Instagram algorithm. Again, LOL. It’s nice to not be on the social media too much with this project now that I mostly just post here.

And yes, I am a BYODC-sponsored fiber artist.

Mix of the week — “Find the Portal”

I basically make and tweak these mixes all week now. It’s what I pour most of my non-attentive writing and crafting time into. These mixes are like a shot in my arm to my feelings of creativity. They are custom crafted to the moods that I am exploring in my work.

This week we take a pathway from the pure hype of the metropole out into the strange, dark night on the edges of town. As we walk, we find ourselves hearing the world around us as music. We realize that we are but one strand in an incredible diverse web. In that moment of enchantment, we slip a knot, walk through a portal, and find ourselves transported to the dimension of the fae, to a place where magic is abundant and all around us. Enjoy.