Molly McLaughlin fell in love with weaving at a large fiber market in 1992. This visit started a thirty-year journey to develop the weaving and dyeing skills she needed to fully express her visual imagery. Nowadays, Molly runs an active weaving studio in Western Massachusetts where she produces commissioned work for private collections, as well as selling her work in national craft shows.
Supplementing Some Pizzazz into our Weaving Lives
Before AVL, Jacquard, or drawlooms, if a weaver wanted to weave imagery into their woven fabric they needed to find ways of including supplementary warps and wefts. Varied and highly innovative approaches abounded and different techniques propagated through many different cultures. This seminar will examine some of the different approaches to creating imagery by working with supplemental warps and wefts that are still being actively used in many different cultures, with the hope of encouraging weavers to experiment with creating imagery through non-loom controlled techniques.
The examples discussed will include among others Pahikung a warp supplemental technique from Indonesia; Pinilian a brocade from the Northern Philippines that uses sticks inserted on chosen warp threads: and the Kotpad weaving techniques used on saris woven by the tribal weavers of the Mirgan community of Kotpad village in the Koraput district of Odisha, India.
Materials fee: None
Supplies: None