Travel

The initial stages of learning a skill are the same, regardless of the skill.
While I was in New York City, I took an introductory weaving lesson at Loop of the Loom. You walk in. You take your shoes off. You sit down at a loom. The nice lady shows you how to move the pedals up and down and how to send the shuttle back and forth. For two hours, you weave. Change yarns. Learn a new pattern. See what happens when you try to leave space. There are no mistakes.
It reminded me of riding a school horse in a lesson program.
You are a beginner. You know little about weaving (horses) other that it (they) seems pretty. You show up at the weaving studio (the barn). The loom is strung for you (the horse is tacked up). You sit down (get on). You weave (ride). You don’t need to understand the set-up (horse care). You don’t have to spend the inordinate length of time with all the non-weaving tasks such as stringing the loom (looking after the horse).
There are all the yarns (tack) you need, extra bobbins (ring furniture), and random fluffy bits (peppermints). An instructor hovers nearby to help you when you get snarled (ditto). When the session is over, you get help tying off (dismounting). You waft out of the weaving studio (barn), leaving the clean up to someone else.
All of the weaving (riding). None of the responsibility.
You don’t make anything useful (you spend a lot of time trotting around in harmless circles) but you have a lot of time to concentrate on your weaving technique (your riding position). If you want to produce anything useful: a shawl, a dress, a set of placemats (move up), you need your own loom (horse) and you need to learn how to maintain it (start shoveling).
Do you find parallels in your disparate activities, or am I reaching here?

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott
























