Experiments with weaving
Documented below are some of my reflections from the experience of weaving regularly over a period of four - six weeks.
Part 1: Learning with the weavers
Basket 1
Basket 1
I have bargained a rather ideal deal with the ladies for this basket. Since I do not know how to prepare my materials yet, I will need help with that part but they are not allowed to help me with the weaving unless I ask for it.
This is what came of the experiment.
The attempt when I began was to make a short, square shaped basket the walls of which would lean outwards. To do this I began by placing the thick strips of bamboo criss-cross. I did not have a number in my mind as I started, I simply have an imagined width I want to achieve. After the 10th strip or so I could feel my impatience building as I recognized my difficulties in making the strips behave the way I wanted them to. I bent the strips sharply upwards and began my journey upwards upwards with the thin sticks.
Having decided that I would ask for no support unless absolutely required, I really struggled with this part. Neither the strips nor the sticks were willing to follow my demands. Despite my greatest attempts I could not close up some of the gaps that were emerging through the weaves. Yet, I powered through to see what would happen if I left behind some seemingly shoddy weaves. But neither the weaving nor anything else proved to be challenge beyond this point. I just had to give myself regular reminders about a few things - push the vertical strips inwards, one weave forward, one weave backward, tight weaves, tug, pull. Towards the end, I asked for help to add the extra touch of a handle, something I'd never done before.
Bamboo is a remarkably easy material to get used to and it produces instantly beautiful results.
Basket 2 / Basket 3
Descriptive writing 1
To start off on a new basket I first need to find myself two sticks that are easily mouldable. They have to be tough yet bendy, malleable as I try to bend them into circles. The sticks I’m attempting to work with are not bending as easily as I would have hoped. They are cracking. I had hoped that leaving them in water over night would have helped with this. But these sticks have also been in our storage for so long that they have gradually changed form since we first got them. We got them about a year back maybe. It would be a pity to just waste them so I am going to try to make it work - more soaking if required. I try out a few more sticks, but they all seem to be failing me.
For now, it might be best to ditch my attempts at a new basket. I had also brought back home with me some already-started baskets from one of the workshops we had held at school for the parents and children. No one seems to have returned to them so I’m going to attempt to complete them. This part is much easier. No sooner have I got it in my hands that I know what needs to be done. I pick up a suitable strip and get to work. I’ve done this enough times before and my hands get to work almost immediately. But my eyes are distracting me from just weaving - the earlier weaves haven’t been done too well. It would be best to undo some of it and start the weaving again. I undo about 4 or 5 before it feels like I can get to work. I notice some cracks and I am worried. What if this leaves have truly become too old? What if they haven’t been stored the right way? What if the sun and the soaking have left them a little useless?
Descriptive Writing 2
As I keep weaving - up, down, across, backward, loop, repeat - I notice that my strips aren’t quite perfect. There’s a lot of variety in width and form from one strip to the next and I wonder how this will make the final basket look. In my earlier interaction with the Kanyakumari weavers it had seemed okay for there to be all that difference but the Vellore weaver didn’t seem to have that attitude . Her strips were remarkably similar in form and this brought a different uniformity to her baskets. They had a little machine, similar across most palm leaf weavers I’ve met, to help them cut the leaves into uniform strips. We tried making one at school with a wooden board and nails but it just made the fibrous part of the leaf come undone. So like I had mentioned earlier, I devised my own scrappy strategy which was better than the nails but not nearly perfect.
I am noticing now, as I weave, that weaving with natural materials is starkly different from weaving with processed material like paper, thread or wool. Each strip has a personality of it’s own at different stages of it’s life. You have to wait, watch and re-learn. Of course, having worked with it for decades might make this too predictable in some ways as must be the case for the women weavers I’ve met. Yet, one is also subject to whatever the material insists on being on that day - insisting not as matter of choice but as a matter of fact.
Descriptive writing 3
After a while, I start to feel that familiar sense of comfort with the material, I can make it do what I need it to do without struggling with it. Maybe my observations have informed the weaving or quite possibly the struggle with it has ended - I have given in to the fact that this is what the material demands. I now spot a mistake and undo a couple of weaves. This too, is a matter of fact, the weave has to be undone. There is no option of not doing it or of allowing for the mistakes to pass. It feels like that would defeat the purpose of this elaborately repetitive process.
My senses are now alert, I can hear a small crack from the material and it makes me cautious to the possibility of a tear. The method is unarticulated yet known. The eyes, ears, brain are all watching. my mind floats in and out of this thought and that - about music, people, ideas - but this doesn’t stop my senses and my hands from observing and responding to the needs of the weaving. Each weave is as important as the previous one. There is no room for dullness - not yet any way. Each repetition demands it’s own perfect, which is the same as the last yet of its own.
Descriptive writing 4
It’s back to starting trouble. When you take a break from your materials and you return to them it’s like they’re annoyed with you and they’re putting up a fight. You won’t know where to find what you want - the right shape, size, colour, nothing. Today felt like one of those days. It took forever to find two decent sticks and get started.
Once I had started my body took no time to find it’s rhythm.
Find the right coloured leaf
cut it to the appropriate thickness (to match the previous weaves)
Put it through the gap
Hold
Tug
Pull
Wrap
Gap
Repeat
The weaves looked lovely; fairly uniform. And when it wasn’t, the last few weaves were undone, the thickness of the strip reduced and then the weaving resumed. Yet each moment I became aware of myself I found my thoughts were all elsewhere, straying from this event to that expectation.
Was I watching the material and responding to it’s demands? Yes?
Had I experimented at all? Yes
Had I shown any creativity? Yes
Was I flowing? Yes.
Was I completely present? No…?
Part 1: Learning with the weavers
Basket 1
Basket 2
Watching and learning
The attempt was to observe and capture the entire process through my writing.
Part 2: Weaving by myself
Basket 1
I have bargained a rather ideal deal with the ladies for this basket. Since I do not know how to prepare my materials yet, I will need help with that part but they are not allowed to help me with the weaving unless I ask for it.
This is what came of the experiment.
The attempt when I began was to make a short, square shaped basket the walls of which would lean outwards. To do this I began by placing the thick strips of bamboo criss-cross. I did not have a number in my mind as I started, I simply have an imagined width I want to achieve. After the 10th strip or so I could feel my impatience building as I recognized my difficulties in making the strips behave the way I wanted them to. I bent the strips sharply upwards and began my journey upwards upwards with the thin sticks.
Having decided that I would ask for no support unless absolutely required, I really struggled with this part. Neither the strips nor the sticks were willing to follow my demands. Despite my greatest attempts I could not close up some of the gaps that were emerging through the weaves. Yet, I powered through to see what would happen if I left behind some seemingly shoddy weaves. But neither the weaving nor anything else proved to be challenge beyond this point. I just had to give myself regular reminders about a few things - push the vertical strips inwards, one weave forward, one weave backward, tight weaves, tug, pull. Towards the end, I asked for help to add the extra touch of a handle, something I'd never done before.
Bamboo is a remarkably easy material to get used to and it produces instantly beautiful results.
Basket 2 / Basket 3
Descriptive writing 1
To start off on a new basket I first need to find myself two sticks that are easily mouldable. They have to be tough yet bendy, malleable as I try to bend them into circles. The sticks I’m attempting to work with are not bending as easily as I would have hoped. They are cracking. I had hoped that leaving them in water over night would have helped with this. But these sticks have also been in our storage for so long that they have gradually changed form since we first got them. We got them about a year back maybe. It would be a pity to just waste them so I am going to try to make it work - more soaking if required. I try out a few more sticks, but they all seem to be failing me.
For now, it might be best to ditch my attempts at a new basket. I had also brought back home with me some already-started baskets from one of the workshops we had held at school for the parents and children. No one seems to have returned to them so I’m going to attempt to complete them. This part is much easier. No sooner have I got it in my hands that I know what needs to be done. I pick up a suitable strip and get to work. I’ve done this enough times before and my hands get to work almost immediately. But my eyes are distracting me from just weaving - the earlier weaves haven’t been done too well. It would be best to undo some of it and start the weaving again. I undo about 4 or 5 before it feels like I can get to work. I notice some cracks and I am worried. What if this leaves have truly become too old? What if they haven’t been stored the right way? What if the sun and the soaking have left them a little useless?
Descriptive Writing 2
As I keep weaving - up, down, across, backward, loop, repeat - I notice that my strips aren’t quite perfect. There’s a lot of variety in width and form from one strip to the next and I wonder how this will make the final basket look. In my earlier interaction with the Kanyakumari weavers it had seemed okay for there to be all that difference but the Vellore weaver didn’t seem to have that attitude . Her strips were remarkably similar in form and this brought a different uniformity to her baskets. They had a little machine, similar across most palm leaf weavers I’ve met, to help them cut the leaves into uniform strips. We tried making one at school with a wooden board and nails but it just made the fibrous part of the leaf come undone. So like I had mentioned earlier, I devised my own scrappy strategy which was better than the nails but not nearly perfect.
I am noticing now, as I weave, that weaving with natural materials is starkly different from weaving with processed material like paper, thread or wool. Each strip has a personality of it’s own at different stages of it’s life. You have to wait, watch and re-learn. Of course, having worked with it for decades might make this too predictable in some ways as must be the case for the women weavers I’ve met. Yet, one is also subject to whatever the material insists on being on that day - insisting not as matter of choice but as a matter of fact.
Descriptive writing 3
After a while, I start to feel that familiar sense of comfort with the material, I can make it do what I need it to do without struggling with it. Maybe my observations have informed the weaving or quite possibly the struggle with it has ended - I have given in to the fact that this is what the material demands. I now spot a mistake and undo a couple of weaves. This too, is a matter of fact, the weave has to be undone. There is no option of not doing it or of allowing for the mistakes to pass. It feels like that would defeat the purpose of this elaborately repetitive process.
My senses are now alert, I can hear a small crack from the material and it makes me cautious to the possibility of a tear. The method is unarticulated yet known. The eyes, ears, brain are all watching. my mind floats in and out of this thought and that - about music, people, ideas - but this doesn’t stop my senses and my hands from observing and responding to the needs of the weaving. Each weave is as important as the previous one. There is no room for dullness - not yet any way. Each repetition demands it’s own perfect, which is the same as the last yet of its own.
Descriptive writing 4
It’s back to starting trouble. When you take a break from your materials and you return to them it’s like they’re annoyed with you and they’re putting up a fight. You won’t know where to find what you want - the right shape, size, colour, nothing. Today felt like one of those days. It took forever to find two decent sticks and get started.
Once I had started my body took no time to find it’s rhythm.
Find the right coloured leaf
cut it to the appropriate thickness (to match the previous weaves)
Put it through the gap
Hold
Tug
Pull
Wrap
Gap
Repeat
The weaves looked lovely; fairly uniform. And when it wasn’t, the last few weaves were undone, the thickness of the strip reduced and then the weaving resumed. Yet each moment I became aware of myself I found my thoughts were all elsewhere, straying from this event to that expectation.
Was I watching the material and responding to it’s demands? Yes?
Had I experimented at all? Yes
Had I shown any creativity? Yes
Was I flowing? Yes.
Was I completely present? No…?
Reflections
Comments
Post a Comment