Lots of our friends track us down to see the finished weaving, have another go on the loom and say goodbye to Travis. Jo presents him with a cute little cardigan she’s knitted in just a week, for his soonish to be born son and Travis decides unilaterally and rightly, that she, as the donor of all the wool used throughout the project deserves to have the first ownership of the first woven blanket.

In total 394 people come to visit the Weavers House over the weekend. It’s a huge achievement for the hard working volunteers, who are all hoarse from talking and aching from standing on the hard stone floors.

The project is now over. But the revolution has begun. More to follow…
Safe journey home Travis!

Alongside the other people demonstrating spinning and dyeing with woad to make Coventry Blue, Travis explains the principles of weaving to an impressed public, over and over again. He bears up well, but unfortunately the loom doesn’t. A suspect screw that has been bothering Travis and I throughout the two weeks, now fails and an emergency repair has to take place with the help of Trust volunteer Brian, using an authentic medieval electric drill…
The repairs are quick and the loom now looks a lot more robust and less likely to snag clothing or fingers, so we’re all happy.

It’s a good day, weather changeable but not torrential and the house and gardens look very fine. The first blanket woven by the general public, is displayed on a ‘tenter’ – a frame for stretching out the fabric and is much admired. And as people get entranced by the process of weaving, yet more fabric begins to emerge from the loom.

What are we going to do with it all? This is a question Travis always faces at the end of a project and he finds it interesting to invite the public to make suggestions. So far we’ve not had many, though – any ideas from the webosphere welcome.

Last chance to meet Travis at the Weavers House today, Sunday 11, 10.00-4.00.

Official opening times are 10.00-4.00, we hope to see you there!

More pics to follow

Nothing like I imagine textiles manufacturing operates on a mass production scale. A former weaver from Cashes silk weaving company tells us how she had to make the same woven labels every day and the most exciting thing that happened was when a thread broke.
So here we are feeling very privileged to be making cloth and yet enjoying the process.

We’ve become something of a magnet for local textile lovers. They visit us again and again. And they bring their own textiles and projects to show Travis and talk through processes, stories and techniques.
It feels like a really productive time, with confidence building and ideas being discussed. And Travis is in just quietly supporting the process. So this is what an Action Weaver is.

And at last we see it in action. He started by weaving a couple of rows of thick wool which becomes the ‘header’ or waste cloth. Then the real weaving begins.

After a week of using the little heddle looms, which are so flexible but really dependent on the user keeping the threads taut to work, it feels like a gift to work with a set up that is already set up and which stays permanently rigid. The pedals also make it really easy to change the warp threads over. Travis has made a basic stick shuttle which feels huge compared to the little plastic ones, and doesn’t take much effort to pass between the threads. But without the experience of the back strap looms I think many people would feel intimidated by the look of the loom and all of those threads and wouldn’t have grasped the principles so easily. It feels like just the right time in the project to offer people something to progress onto. And the cloth being produced is so beautiful – it’s got a lovely tweedy feel. This really does feel like a Weavers House now.

Travis therefore offered them a more advanced session and the results involving woven pictures and two colour patterns are intriguing.

The participatory nature of your practice means that your residency is something different to what is usually understood as their purpose. Often craft residencies enable the host community to observe an artist developing a new piece of work. Whereas you make the work with the public.

What do you see as the function of your residency?

When I finish with public work at the end of the day and start to stitch together the bits of cloth that each person has made, it really drives home this feeling of using the residency as an opportunity to make more connections; between myself and the people that work with me, but more importantly helping generate new communities. I see the residency as a point of departure; it may be more of a reaction against what I’ve offered, rather than everyone then following my techniques and approaches. I feel that it would be false to come to a community and put them through a process and then go away expecting them to now become one big happy family.

How does this residency compare with other residencies in other places?
It’s really meant a lot to be based in one neighbourhood for an extended time and actually feel the day to day rhythms of life.

The weaving takes over the street

There’s always challenge with fast-moving projects, to balance the need to document the activities, alongside the actual delivery of work with the public.

Local cinematorgraphers, Mark Hancock and John Randle interrogate Travis

The day’s walkabout took the form of a trek to a nearby pub for Travis to experience some quintessential pub cuisine. His choice of a roast dinner afloat in gravy in a giant yorkshire pudding may have been a tad ambitious. Travis managed about a third.

A rather liquid lunch

Day 5 (Friday)
We had warm welcome at Grapevine; a charity for adults with learning disabilities where we visited one of their drop in sessions. Once the initial shyness was overcome we had quite a few takers.

Shamin Akrtar - a fine weaver

Following the Groundwork event, Travis then set to work to warp the loom. On Saturday, Travis will work with SEBPT members and volunteers to offer his weaving philosophy to textile people of varying degrees of expertise. Whilst he patiently threaded the comb, I asked him for a few thoughts and impressions about the residency.
See the next post…

With us throughout the two weeks, is Adrian our loyal volunteer from SEBPT who has taken time off work to support the project. Not only does he do a great line in bad jokes and endless cups of coffee, he’s also becoming a bit of an impressive weaver himself. Three days into the project and he’s not only producing at least 20cms of weaving a day, but has got the hang of the fiddly process involved in setting up the backstrap looms. He’s also great at engaging with the public and has lured many an unsuspecting passerby into the weaving activity.

We had a busy morning with a few returning weavers, coming to have another go, show Travis interesting weaving artefacts and just hang out. There’s a really nice buzzy atmosphere with lots of people coming out of the woodwork with an interest or past life in textiles.
The Trust already has a group of textiles lovers and the project seems likely to double the size of it, so there’s a lot of talk about plans for ongoing weaving activity at the Weavers House and in Spon End.

The loom still continues; Travis is beginning to set up the harnesses. He’s using a rather bent bit of broom handle to act as a roller, which adds to its eccentric appearance.
Our visit to the ROSE Community Centre went well. Of course we had a few lads who came solely to scarf cake, but I was impressed how children as young as 8 stood still for a good 15 minutes weaving, whilst my own two lasted about 5 minutes each.
Some of the children promised to come back tomorrow – hopefully a few adults will also come and see what we’re up to.