New Blog Appears on the Horizon
Here I go, kicking and screaming into technology. A sad sight, to be sure, but entertaining.
The skills I teach my high schoolers are old; very old. Spinning wool into yarn, braiding and weaving that yarn into cloth, dying that cloth with berries, barks, and leaves. They are skills that are all very old, very basic – practiced by our kind for untold generations. These skills and others like them (basket making, candle dipping…) ensured our survival at the most basic level and later developed into Folk Art. We humans have always been driven to make the everyday objects around us beautiful. This led to a wild variety of Folk Art styles developing throughout the world; a rich savory selection of colors, textures, and geometries.
Folk Art is the democracy of the art world, art in the hands of the people!
So how does a teacher of old, old techniques end up blogging with new, new technology? We adapt. We never stop learning. The journey is rich with beautiful objects, wide-eyed students, the luxurious tactile feel of the fiber in my fingers, the smooth shuttle in my hand. The computer keyboard is just a new tool to get the word out.
Wish me luck!
