Exuberant
Colleen is tired of me for apologizing for our cozy home. We are definitely not minimalist. Our tendency toward exuberance is everywhere in the beer steins we collect to the refrigerator magnets. We have eight cats. I will add the Willow’s picture is a reminder of wide angle distortion, once more! I took old bobbins and made them into pens, not once but, as you see, many times over. Baskets? Ditto. One detail I will note: Colleen can weave! This cloth is being woven on a barn loom that dates back to the Revolutionary war. Wow! She can weave!! I like living large!
Stuffed
… the opposite of minimalist. I wish. Ha! We are close to clutter. But not! Call it cozy. Call it busy. What weaver wouldn’t kill for a studio like this? Barn loom and four modern looms. I have cameras – lots. Looms (five) are bigger and standout in a room. Alas, we have looms in the living room. Don’t forget the great wheel! And we have beer mugs – lots. My Nantucket baskets await. I shall give them away one day. Ha ha.
Consider it home. We (truly) live in it. It’s a happy home. Did you peek into the background? There’s something to catch your eye everywhere. Meaning and memories abound, stories to regale you of adventure and fun, not clutter, but about love. If there were only one beer mug it would just be a representative of the genre, a commemorative. But, each one after is a memory of place and travels. Yes, we’ve been around a bit. …making up for lost time. Yup, stuffed…with love.
It Works!
Since I know Colleen we have been taking pictures of barn looms. I shoot to see the tie up and set up. Fascinating?! Well, we bought a real one a couple years back. It dates back to the revolutionary war period – old, real old. And then we won another one in a chance pick up from a man who got a pile of wood at a government auction and didn’t know what to do with it. (The name – they kept them in barns, or the construction of the loom was like constructing a barn.) No one knows. After a couple of years, it works. I built the harnesses. And we tied the heddles – hand tied – my surgical skill came in handy. It works! Did I say that? We actually… Colleen is actually weaving with it. Ain’t that grand?
Relocation
It (she, the barn loom) was not happy in the basement. Barn loom? You might envision a loom so large it needed to be housed in a barn. Nope. It was made from substantial timber because the builders were used to building barns. This lumber was the material they were used to working with. Oh?! Yeah, me too. I was relieved that it was not a large loom. Big enough. And heavy! Yup, the SOB needed to disassembled and transported upstairs piece by piece. The back beam is a roughhewn tree trunk. Dry, but still one heavy SOB. We squeezed it into a room with four other looms. Why do we need so many (looms)? Ha! I got cameras (digital, don’t ask about film please) TNTC – too numerous to count. But why do we have such a bulky hobby? Well, short answer, you do a lot of different things. Yeah, right. Don’t we all. Bottom line: sunny and happy!
photobackstory 