Leaving weaving Or, who am I if I’m not a weaver?

I’m at a curious inflection point in my art life. When I developed an overuse injury in my shoulder almost two years ago, I had to pause tapestry weaving for several months, leaving two projects mid-stream. During that time, I floundered. What could I do with myself if I couldn’t weave? I took a watercolor class, which was great fun but only reminded me that “I am not a painter, I’m a weaver.” At the end of that class when we had a little show of our “landscape paintings,” mine had been sliced into strips and woven together. I tore studies into swatches and made them into a folded book.

And thus began my journey away from loom and thread-based weaving toward paper weaving and paper and book art generally. I’ve had great fun exploring the interplay of woven structure and painted imagery, and I look forward to doing more of that in my studio and with students in my Adventures in Paperweaving classes.

Molly Elkind, © Late Summer, 23.75” x 29.25”

I’m also continuing to research and explore ways of creating open mesh-like structures. I’ve dipped into bobbin lace, needle lace and crocheted lace, in yarn, wire, and paper. Before I moved away from tapestry, I explored various open weave structures, so this is a natural progression.

© Molly Elkind, SkyGrass, 26” x 45”. See the open-warp triangles?

Now, two years after my initial existential crisis, I’m ready to move into the next chapter. I’m selling my looms (all but a couple frame looms), most of my yarns and tools, and many of my weaving books. I need space for the supplies and the work I’m making on paper and in other media.

4-shaft LeClerc counterbalance loom with raddle, reeds, shuttles, spool rack—all available! (Paper garland of little birds too!). Contact me if interested.

It feels weird to put up for sale my familiar Mirrix looms and especially my 4-shaft floor loom from the fiber arts department in Louisville, where I did my art degree. Who am I if this loom isn’t in my studio? If I’m not a weaver?

I’m learning to answer that question. I’m a mixed-media artist. Or, just an artist. And I am confident that weaving, the combining of disparate materials into a new whole, will continue to be the lens through which I look at the world, no matter what I make. Weaving IS metaphor.

When I did a graduate degree in English, right after college, I wrote my thesis about a poem by Ezra Pound, “Homage to Sextus Propertius,” a supposed translation of a classical Latin poem. Pound was widely misunderstood and excoriated by critics for this poem, because it was not a close translation but rather a poetic paraphrase, a remix if you will. In my thesis I argued that strict adherence to rigid categories for poetry, and indeed any art form, can get in our way of understanding and appreciating work that blurs boundaries, crosses genres, and breaks new ground.

It’s way too soon to know whether what I do in mixed media will do any of that, but I know that limiting my self-definition to “weaver” is not working for me anymore.

What self-definitions do you have that maybe you’ve outgrown?