The Saturday Morning Post: Looms

There was a house on Lake Orion in Michigan when I was a child that had massive windows overlooking the lake. The first summer that we idled by on my uncle's boat the lady of the house was playing a concert grand piano in the window, with the lights on inside. My mother remarked about her being an exhibitionist, turning the lights on to make that she was seen.  The second summer the piano was gone, replaced by a loom, with a warp at least 4 feet wide.  The lady of the house, had the spotlights on, as she worked the loom day in and day out.  

I was entranced. The rhythm of weaving, the art of the pattern, the colors and textures. I could have anchored there and watched for hours. It was performance art, and I was the glad to be in the audience. 

So began my lifelong infatuation. 

When we lived in Kentucky we went a couple of times to Churchill Weavers in Bera.  Churchill had a couple of dozen looms in one large work room, and talented local artists who spent hours creating textile wonders.  One year we bought woven throws for Christmas gifts, I still have one. I don't recall why, but Churchill closed, the space is now an event space.  A sad loss to the art.  

My great Aunt Edith, or little Aunt Edith as the kids called her, I don't' think she ever weighed over 100 pounds, had worked in a woolen mill in England in the 1920's.  She described the steam powered mechanical marvels roaring and churning out fabric by the boatload.  She said she was alway the last one in as the steam whistle blew for shift change, and the first one out at the end of the long shift.  As she put it, "walk to work, and run away from it."  She moved to the United States between WWI and WWII and was housekeeper for the Firestone family.  My father went to stay with her the summer my Big Aunt Edith was born.  Big Aunt Edith passed the 100 pound mark as a teenager and fought with her weight most of her life.  

Someday, I should learn to weave.