Book Review: Stories from the Matrix

 

Book Review from Margaret Tayti:

(DISCLAIMER: Laura is a friend of mine, and I received a review copy of Stories from the Matrix - but I would have purchased a copy regardless!)

If you're fortunate, you may have a few 'Crossroads and Connections' friends. The friends who serve as mentor and sounding board, and fit so many other roles - and you find over time, that there's at least some trading of those roles.

Connections are really key to so many things. For example, there are a finite number of ways to interlace threads - they cross over or under, they skip, they twist, they loop - sounds simple, right? 

It Depends. (This is the Short Answer to nearly everything...)

How the threads get to the places where they meet, MATTERS - and the result is an enormous variety of textile traditions, spanning the globe, and human history.

I'm primarily a spinner, and a weaver of narrow goods. Anyone who knows about Laura might think we have very little in common - her career has been the production of VAST amounts of loom-controlled cloth, and teaching others to continue that craft. 

I... make tiny scraps of things, sporadically - often in ways that make some online discussions of 'Slow Cloth' seem ludicrously swift.

And yet, we connect. Our paths differ, each travelling its own way... but there are places where they merge, or where we find ourselves in parallel, each a  thread necessary to the final cloth. 

Many of the essays in Stories capture the essence of those spaces where we connect. They cover some of the important questions we need to ask ourselves, as well as Laura's observations from decades of lived experience as a production weaver.

I've heard many of these topics before, and was present in her studio for a few of them, a number of years ago. Having them collected in one place is like having her over for coffee and a private lesson (without having to wake her up at 3 am, when my muse strikes).

I can curl up with these essays, and be reminded in numerous ways that Laura doesn't think of my collection of sticks, string, and playing cards (or pile of spindles), as 'lesser' when compared to her tools. They're different, of course (I could never put a Megado in a backpack and take it camping) but they're no less suited to what I do than her equipment is to her workflow. The questions she poses to herself, and the observations she makes about her time at the loom, are often hauntingly familiar - in part because weavers still have bodies, in all shapes and sizes, and those bodies are prone to wear and tear if we aren't paying attention.

She has spent a lifetime refining her workflow to put efficiency foremost, and outlines what that can look like in a working studio, where 'waste' has to be balanced against remaining productive and profitable. We both have occasion to be frustrated with bodies that don't always let us do what we want, and she shares some of that journey here, as well. Her solutions may not suit everyone, but the process may be useful to anyone facing the realities of injury, aging, or physical changes.

The essays are as much about the life that surrounds the weaving time, as they are about technique, and I think many are relevant to a broader audience than just weavers. I suspect my Maker friends could benefit from the insights about workspace requirements and adapting to a changing world, and her observations about ergonomics are relevant to other physical skills.

I live close enough to have coffee with Laura, and I'm able to chat with her in person on occasion about refining my weaving technique, and exploring other shared and differing aspects of the craft we both love. It's amazing to be able to just catch up and share projects, or pick her brain when I'm at a decision-making Crossroads.

'Stories' might be the next best thing.

Margaret Tayti
Loomacy and Lace