Shut Up and Weave Rethought

I have been thinking about a post I made a while back about not sharing ideas, especially undeveloped ideas, until these ideas are thought out and put into place. I appreciate the thinking behind that and understand how this kind of talk can take away from the power of the thinking and the doing. The notion is that the more someone talks about something, the less likely he is to do it.

But as I thought about this over the past weeks, I began to realize that if there is any purpose to this blog at all its purpose is to show process. Not completed objects, but the process of one particular weaver as she moves and slips and slides through the process of bringing a weaving to life. Whether I view the blog as something of value to me or something perhaps of value to someone else, this is where I believe its value lies. It is a kind of messy film about a messy weaving life.

There is another piece to this, however. In many ways, I am also a writer. To think I need to write. I was never the person who could construct an essay in her head and then type it out. I needed the physical act of writing to help me process ideas. Blogging helps.

I am not that much different as a weaver either. Weaving helps me process weaving ideas.

A number of years ago I took a workshop in tapestry weaving at Arrowmont. There were only a few of us in the class, five if I remember correctly. I had the good fortune of finding the workshop instructor sitting at the loom next to me. During those times when she wasn't teaching or checking out what we were doing or answering questions, she used that loom as a place to play and invent. Being able to watch her experimenting on the loom was perhaps the best thing of the whole workshop. That is certainly what I remember most vividly.