Month: September 2016

A Little Bit of Fun

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While helping Peggy mend a couple of long runs of weaving last week she asked me to weave the end of the warp she had on her barn frame loom because she had run out of rags.  She is out west on her own adventure this week so I figured this would be mine.

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I have never woven on one of these looms before.  What I found was once you understand the mechanics of weaving you can pretty much weave on anything.  So in this one spot I’ve gone from crazy power looms to one of history’s finest.

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It has two shafts and was warped for rag rugs, all I had to do is bring the weft.  I hadn’t woven a rag rug before but have seen plenty in progress so I figured how hard could it be?  I spent a few hours tearing fabric (I’m a long time quilter so fabric is everywhere).  It was torn into strips 3″ wide, folded with the wrong sides together and pressed.  Then I randomly picked pieces and sewed them together in flat seams.  I had a 30″ rag shuttle so I added the strips to that.  I really hadn’t looked at the warp that close before I decided to do this so I had no idea how much weft I was going to need.

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There is nothing like a loom you have to climb into.  It’s quite comfortable, so much so that I think I need to build a bench into my Macomber.

There is no shuttle race when you open the shed but the rag shuttle worked perfectly.  I began and ended the rug with a few picks of rug warp and wove to 60″ in length.  Probably a little long but once I started I couldn’t stop.  Advancing the warp was easily done just required a little muscle.

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There’s a window at your back and a nice breeze was blowing in the entire time I was weaving.  It also gave a rather harsh light to the finished weaving.

Time for a confession.  I’m really a control freak when it comes to a lot of things, especially color.  When I chose my fabric for the weft I used a blue that I had a lot of to add to the continuity of the entire piece.  I didn’t really randomly choose fabrics, they were chosen with intent. I knew what the warp colors were so I made sure to incorporate those colors in the weft.  This didn’t go together the way I had envisioned it but I have to say it finished with something I’m satisfied with.

Now I’m dreaming about that rug loom restoration project in the shed and the things I’m going to be weaving on it.  Sometime we just need a little push.

Goodbye Doc

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Photo – Merritt Brown

I lost a very dear friend yesterday.  2016 has been a rough year.

I met Merritt (Doc) Brown 40 years ago almost to the day at Hallmark Institute of Photography.  We were the third class to go through the school with a class size of a little over 30 people.  At the time Hallmark was a different place than it grew into.  It wasn’t accredited, you couldn’t get financial aid, you had to really want to be there.  It was also the first place in my entire life that I felt like I belonged and one of those reasons was Doc.

I am sharing some things here that will probably not mean as much if you didn’t know him but somehow it feels like everyone knew him.  When we were in school I thought he was probably the worst photographer I had ever met – truly.  He understood the process – his vision, exposure and printing – not so much.   I never saw him in any commercial realm of photography (at least as it was at that time – we’re talking 1977) but he had such a passion for what he was doing.  We’d be given assignments and many critiques were cringe worthy.  He never gave up and graduated with the rest of us (although in a recent conversation we both confessed that neither of us knew how he got through).

Now I can’t speak to how Merritt was before the “Hallmark experience”.  I do know that our time in that place changed us all.  It made us understand the value of friendship and the importance of maintaining the relationships you have.

Merritt had more friends than anyone I ever knew.  He maintained them well.  With the advent of social media he really came into his own.  Through it we could see that his passion for photography had only grown through the years.  He shared his images and his sometimes twisted philosophy with so many of us.  Always quick with a smart remark or advice or simple observation I looked forward to his running commentary on my life.  It was always positive.

This past year we had conversed more than usual and more about life in general than photography specifically. We shared the experience of children lost and found, something rather unique in my circle of friends.  I’m glad it was with him because he always could be counted on for truth in any situation.  He could see things as they were and would tell it like it is.  Last week I visited him at home and the conversation was more poignant.   He wished he had more time with his children and grandchildren.  It killed him to know that he wasn’t going to be around to enjoy some of Manop’s cooking. Fishing, he hadn’t been fishing at all this year.  He had a habit of shooting daily, was limited to home but he still had images to share with his friends. Clouds, he could photograph the clouds and since that’s where he was going he wanted to share them.

He knew he was at the end, he knew some of it had to do with the choices he’d made in life but there were really no regrets.  It had been quite the ride.  So this kind, gentle, larger than life soul left this earth yesterday and we are all sitting here in disbelief.  For me it’s left quite a hole.

My daughter-in-law recently commented on how many friends I have.  I’d never really thought about it before.  I do.  I have circles of friends from different times in my life.  I’ve maintained the ones that are most important to me.  Until now I didn’t realize there’s a downside to all of this, you have to move through losing them.

Our friends make up who we are, some more significantly then others, they teach us how to be.  We try to surround ourselves with the people who make us our better selves.  That’s what Merritt did for me, he made me just a little bit better.

Solitary Goose

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Summer is pretty much gone here.  You can see that the trees and grass in the fields are tired.  Gone is that crisp, vibrant green of spring.

I pass this field in Charlemont often.  It’s along Route 2 coming into town from Rowe.  This morning the air was thick and it was raining . . . and the goose was in the field.  I did two separate u-turns to get to the right spot and stood in the rain in front of my car hoping nothing huge would come rumbling down the road to splash water in my direction.  You do what you have to do to get the shot.

Last spring, as all of the Canadian geese were strolling out the new offspring I saw this goose in this field surrounded by a large flock of Canadian geese.  It was odd, and still is. It has been in this field quite often throughout the summer.  It has conjured up all kinds of scenarios about why it’s there but now there are just questions like where did it come from?  Does it belong to someone?  Why hasn’t some fox eaten it yet?  Is it lonely?

Now I’m starting to worry about where it will be this winter, it doesn’t seem to have any friends to tell it to fly south.  Maybe someone needs to round it up although I will miss seeing it brighten up a field on an otherwise gloomy day.