Wednesday, January 7, 2009

FiberFest 2009

Tonight was the opening reception for Inspired Design, the conference in Hendersonville, NC that I'm attending. Christy Matson, the world's best weaver and all-around cool customer, is exhibiting there along with me. She's also lecturing at the conference and teaching the mill-access class at the Jacquard Center, because she's half Tasmasian devil.
I haven't been in the midst of this kind of fiber crowd in a while. Everyone wears impressive scarves and comments on each other's scarves (one man wore web-toed shoes). After the compulsory scarf-talk, talk centers around fiber arts programs and weaving shop-talk. A sample might sound like this:

"Hey, is that a Kashmiri paisley?"

"No, actually, it's from Bhutan. Isn't it wonderful how they've managed to hold on to their traditions there? You know, aside from the antiquated government and poverty."

"Yes, I love it there. I went with a group from the Toronto Textile Museum to visit weavers in 2002. I felt so AUTHENTIC."

"Do you live in Canada? The Centre de Textiles Contemporains in Montreal has an amazing residency program. I think their Jumbo looms have much better resolution than anything in the States..."

You get the point.

1 comment:

Dutch Girl said...

I'm not sure what is worse - that I know what a Kashmiri paisley is or the little bit I threw up in my mouth just now at the thought of a place feeling more "authentic" than another place.

I love our people sometimes... or your people... my people don't wear web-toed sandals.