Monday, October 17, 2011

Loom & Luminosity



My weaving class is moving right along and it's been so much fun.
I'm really going to be sad when it's over, especially because I'll miss having the opportunity to work on those large floor looms (not to mention having the guidance on all those steps involved in setting up a project)!
Luckily there are so many different kinds of looms that are much more accessible and conducive to smaller spaces, and this weekend sweet G surprised me with an old inkle loom that he'd brought back from a yard sale he visited early in the morning while I was still sleeping! It was built in 1971 at a community in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and it still had the warp threads wound around its pegs from a past project! He had been really looking forward to this yard sale, which had advertised selling "primitive technology" such as overhead projectors and the like, which have a special interest for us since we do light projections with oil and water for friends' bands and our own DJ nights sometimes. As for the primitive technology that made it back to our apartment, he bought an old 16mm film projector which will be so exciting to use! Hopefully we can figure out some way to incorporate it with our visuals for a future music night. How cool would it be to layer liquid projections over old film?



(here's one night of us just playing around at home, projecting on the walls)


The woman having the yard sale told him she used to check out films from the Richmond Public Library and play them for the neighborhood children. Apparently the library used to have a huge collection of all kinds of 16mm films, and the terrible part is that when the technology became antiquated they were all just thrown away! Painful!!
But anyway, this woman sounded so wonderful, having such interesting treasures out for sale and sharing a bit of their histories... Dream finds!!

One more thing going on in my neck of the woods - - - this Wednesday evening is the Supersketch night at Quirk Gallery: several local artists (including myself, ahh!) have been invited to do an evening of live drawing in the gallery, and I'm getting so nervous; everyone involved is so talented! Seriously just hoping I can keep up!