Ties that bind: Community weaving project takes shape
A riot of colours, textures and materials now hanging in a Thirroul store’s community space is a triumph of collective art
When I walk into Thirroul’s Blessed Bowls to meet Faith Ellis, the artist behind a new community weaving project, she ignores my extended hand and instead throws her arms around me in a huge bear hug.
Instantly, I understand why this project has proven so popular. Under Faith’s gentle guidance and huge enthusiasm, dozens of hands, big and small have contributed to the weaving, a riot of colours, textures and materials now hanging in the store’s community art space, along with another two works-in-progress still on the loom.
While Faith comes from a printmaking background and a practice of “always doing lots of different things” – even creating a new paper felting technique featured in her first solo exhibition (running concurrently with this weaving project at Blessed Bowls) – textiles are in her blood.
Faith's first solo exhibition is showing until the end of October and utilises a technique she has created drawing on elements of joomchi and momigami, each taking over 80 hours of work each. Images: Blessed Bowls and Amanda De George
“I come from a textile artist background,” Faith explained. “I’ve got great-great-great grandparents who were stocking makers in England. My mother used to design all her own patterns and do machine knitting. And used to spin her own fibre, so we’ve got a history.”
As for weaving, Faith is self-taught and “plays” in the medium, and she pitched the idea for a community weaving project to Blessed Bowl’s owner Adrian Erdedi.
“I said to Adrian, I’ve got this concept of doing some weaving, could I please set up a space and at that point I didn’t even have a loom,” she laughs.
“I just thought it might be something nice for the kids to do… It really was just an experiment.”
I get the sense that once Faith decides to do something, she gets it done, and with a loom sourced by a friend from a South Coast op shop, modified by the local men’s shed, with a space supplied by Blessed Bowls and with donated yarns and materials, the project kicked off October 1.
The store has opened up what they call a community space, where local artists can exhibit their works although this type of project was a first for them.
“I’m very much focused on having community participation as that is the success of the store, the community,” Adrian said. “So the fact that Faith presented that idea, I was fully in support of it and then she brought it in and people were doing it straight away and I’m thrilled.”
But things didn’t go quite to plan.
There are currently two weavings that can be added to until the end of October. Images: Amanda De George
“I had a picture in mind that it was going to be like this and that went out the window,” Thirroul resident Faith laughed. “Within the first few days, I realised that trying to teach them [children] how to do it exactly, was not going to work.”
While plenty of adults joined in, the main weavers have been kids aged between five and seven. And weaving can be tricky to learn, especially for little hands. Faith said, “They found the ‘over under, over under and then having to go under over, under over really hard. So we adapted and they created this amazing, amazing piece.”
The first weaving is, I have to admit, unexpectedly, wonderfully gorgeous. It’s double-sided, heavily fringed with an abundance of fluffy yarns which Faith assures me the kids always reach for first.
I have my own loom but a sense of perfectionism that won’t let me play in the same way that the local kids have and I can't stop running my hands over the weaving, truly inspired. I think there's a lesson for all of us amongst the thread.
While Faith steps in every now and again to do some twining, essentially locking everything into place, the piece is driven by the community weavers. And there’s still a chance to join in (and yes, that means everyone, even those of us well outside of the 5-7 year range), with the loom warped and ready to be added to for a few more days. Faith tries to sit instore for a couple of hours from around 2pm each day to offer a hand if needed and the bowl of yarn is there ready to be dipped into at all times.
“I just love the enthusiasm of the children and the fact that they did all the fringing. I thought it was going to be more like this [traditional weaving] and all of a sudden we’ve ended up with this beautiful flippy-floppy textile, tactile wonderful piece of art.”
The weaving project, the finished pieces and Faith's exhibition will be on display until the end of October at Blessed Bowls, Lawrence Hargrave Drive, Thirroul.
