Yum Frustration {globule} Desire

This one is a little messy. I'm on a transitional pathway at the moment so we're bumping up against edges, allowing the tangents to run into one another, and practicing asking for help. Hope the few minutes of words ahead entertain you. Bisoux.

Unpopular opinion: I love winter. I'm sweaty. Heat bothers me and makes me lethargic. The opportunity to not sweat, or sweat by choice, is one I will always prefer. I also like to feel like a croissant with layers and layers of crispy clothing and this is just not possible in the warmth of summer. My style aesthetic preference is: croissant. I find that I have a different kind of energy in winter, like more energy. I begin to trail run more, to cook more, to make more. I'm a being of nurturing and creation and this energy for me comes with the cold and shorter light hours. So, my friends, if you get the winter downs please let me know and I will make you soup, knit you scarves, and do the work to make it easier to connect. I'm your winter homie, let me hold you.

Yum

I have an inkling that this cold favouring nature of mine comes from my Scottish highland heritage. I learnt a little while ago that the scots word for poem is poyum. This is a WAY more fun way to say poyum and boy are some of the poyums yum. This one by Eímhín sits on my wall above my desk and it brings me such joy and feelings of being loved.

What I like about Eímhín's poyums is that they (mostly) feel like love poyums. Even those which point to more uncomfortable or outright maddening, saddening realities, there is often a love poyum line to be found. It reminds me there is always love to be found amongst the despair. A cozy illusion of safety in the winter of the world.

This love we find in the mess is what keeps us moving forward eh? Over the last six months I've experienced lots of love which has been so lovely, but it has also felt like an uninspired time (not in relation to the love and others - just personally). I knew that creativity would be put on a shelf as I settled into a new job and changed my living situation. I find myself now in a more comfortable place to live, and somewhat settled into being a commercial weaver. At this point I'm itching to move forward with inspired action, and get back to something that feels like meaningful purpose.

Frustration

I've got to a point with the Micro Mill where I'm sick of temporary space set ups. It's exhausting when you can't remunerate talented people for their help and time, and so sad when you have to leave a community over and over again. I want long-term meaningful connection with space, place, and people. On top of this, for the last year or more I haven't felt like I've put enough time towards my personal craft practice. Patience + inspiration are the antidote to frustration, I think. My strategic self knows there is a way out with ease. I've just got to wait for the moment {I think the moment is here} where the people weaving and the material weaving can come together to become one globule of weaving. Love that word. Globule. Globules against frustration. ehehe

For a while I've been reflecting on my return to the hierarchical business structure, and, if we're being honest, I've been stewing on how much I dislike it. My dear friend Amber recently started her own newsletter and the following section from her first addition expresses very clearly what I've been feeling.

"The thing is, I'm really disappointed. Actually, I'm really right fucked off. Right fucked off about everything that's been sacrificed in the political pursuit of economic growth. All of the bloated bureaucracy; the made up jobs to subdue us; the never ending processes to remind us of our inferiority; the violent rules that shape the suffering of people who are drenched in fabricated debt and surrounded by actual wealth. We live in absolute absurdity and even though some of us know it, the absurdity has so infected our ability to survive that we have no other option than to sell our labour to the machine and help turn the cogs of hopelessness that destroy any sense of possible alternative futures."

Desire

When I'm weaving in this moody anti machine sentiment I keep finding myself exploring the question: what would a worker owned textile mill look like? I found some beginnings in Ōtepoti. I visited Yours, a co-op that delivers a cafe, basic local-ish wholesale foods, events, and more to the community of central Dunners. What they are doing is amazing and gives me hope for community run production, and collective, organised survival.

Yours | ŌPCo

ŌPCo

I was in Ōtepoti to attend the CTANZ symposium. Listening to and looking at the work others are passionate about really fires up the sensation of inspiration inside. Passion and purpose is pretty contagious. One presentation in particular I want to share was by Steven, Gina, Georgina and Christine. Rooted in Gina's calling to grow linen and dye plants organically for textiles, the other three creatives made work in relationship to her purpose; relationship with the soil. They used materials from Gina's farm, reflecting the functions of growth, of relationship with whenua, and each other. The entire work is about the relationship with soil, where everything begins and everything ends. 'The Soil Addresses Us As One' is an exhibition of the work on display in Ōtautahi later this year. It opens on the 27th of May at Te Ara Ātea.

"The season starts by listening to the soil"

"He taonga nō te whenua, me hoki anō ki te whenua"
"What is given to the land, should return to the land"

"In the oneness we are never alone."

Most presentations at this symposium are by individuals. It's really beautiful to see a group of craftspeople make and present together. Not only is the work produced so inspiring and beautiful to be with, it seemed that working together had grown a huge appreciation for each other and the relationships that have emerged between the physical works. At question time I asked what is needed to make it easier for artists to get together more, to build meaningful relationship with land and each other, and the answer was space. It feels like the piece of the puzzle we can't quite get around, and one I've come up against plenty in my own practice and with the Micro Mill. So ya'll inspire me to keep trying to find space.

This weekend was the first time I openly shared and explored this collectively owned and operated mill idea, outside of my own head. It's one I had been keeping to myself for a while because I wasn't sure if it's what I truely desire, but now I am sure.

So, I'm experiencing some of the 'danger! don't share so soon' internally, but I think this is one of those go into the fear moments. Because to be honest I don't know what I'm doing, and I need help. I am one person. To organise we need many. What I can do is weave fabric and weave people, so thats what I'm going to do. What I'm asking of you is; what can you do? What do you want to do? What do you know? What does this idea make you think, make you feel? I need information, I need space, I need expertise, I need perspective, I need connection. If you can offer anything that could help, let us trade.

Meme offering

Thanks for putting your eyes here.
Lots of love.

~ Your globule of weaving