Who knew that pounding a mass of material could be such fun? In a classroom at Elphinstone Secondary, 11 women are making a lot of noise laughing, pounding, slapping and soaping their mound of felted wool under the direction of Sharon Wickstrom from Armstrong, B.C., just one of about 25 instructors leading workshops at last week's Gibsons Landing Fibre Arts Festival.
"We're having a mucking good time," she tells me. "More water," she calls out to the students who pile on the soapy liquid and continue to pound and slap. It seems you can make anything out of felt that can be made from fabric - hats, vests, slippers, blankets and purses.
In a classroom down the hall, seven women and one man sit spinning yarn. Instructor Kim McKenna from Langley calls her course Treasure Trove and shows the participants how to make the best out of any of the fibres they have stashed away - from raw silk to yak wool. She demonstrates on a wad of silk that has been dyed, teased and manipulated in her hands. She forms it into a colourful rectangle, then the magic happens. Using her thumbs, she pokes a hole in the middle and stretches it into one long bulky strand. On a spinning wheel, she shows how to spin a worsted yarn that lasts longer and displays a gorgeous lustre.
Arashi, Point of Departure sounds mysterious. A mother and daughter crafting team - mom from Quesnel visiting a daughter in Sechelt - explained they would be learning to dye silk scarves by soaking them in exquisite colours. Then they would wring out and wrap them around a form to apply texture that makes them crinkly, so they can be used as appliqué on dresses or wall hangings. As I watch, one woman pulls her scarf out of the dye pot and is dismayed that it is such a dark blue. But instructor Kris Abshire of Alaska quickly reassures her and the group gathers around the ironing board. "Silk can stand the steam iron," she says, "just not for very long." As she smooths the scarf with the iron, the colours pop out, soft pearly blues, the shades of the early evening sky.
Many of the Festival instructors are from the Coast: Jessica Casey led a group in Coast Salish cedar bark weaving. Angela Fullwood demonstrated how to make a custom bra, and Gibsons' Doreen MacLauchlan led a class in knitting two socks at the same time. Will Cummer of Gibsons taught two workshops in driftwood furniture; one group produced a bench, the other an arbour.
When the Festival takes place, the workshops are often overshadowed by the dramatic exhibition of fibre art on display in the school's library. This year, the juried exhibition showed the work of felters, weavers, knitters, quilters, embroiderers and woodworkers. Several pieces were stunning: particularly two costumes from the Coast's Ursula Bentz, the whiz of wearable art. The quilts, some of them employing an environmental theme, were also a knockout. And one piece had everyone talking.
A cedar book by Susan Paynter from Saltspring Island was a realistic re-creation of cedar branches, worked entirely in fabric. As viewers opened the branches like pages of a book, they could read reproduced quotes from Bill Reid on the importance of the red cedar tree. The last page of the book closed with another laudatory quote about cedar from Emily Carr. Paynter, who is a Raging Granny, attended an environmental workshop where she was told that the red cedar might be the first tree to disappear following climate change. She was dismayed and channelled that dismay into her work. The cedar book earned the Peoples' Choice Award as well as the judges' award for best in show.
