Blog Catch Up: Apprentices In The Studio

[Jacob at the loom, photo by Max]

I suppose I should catch y'all up on the story of the collective in order to explain why there are new apprentices.

Well, in April we moved to a new house with a new set of expectations. Wispr, my primary assistant, decided to go on a vision quest with the money that he had earned in the studio last year. His travels are still taking him all over the country where he's exploring just what he wants to do and where he wants to be. This means that he's not here at the moment and not sure that if he comes back he will be interested in weaving.

Jaime and Audrey have decided that country living is not for them at the moment, and have moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. Blessings on their journey.

Harlan and Arcana are here, and the focus on their own work is stronger than ever, leaving little time or energy to work in the weaving studio.

Sooo, I've been holding down the fort alone since March, excluding half a quarter of productive time lost to "circumstances beyond my control". Well, my best shows are yet to come this year and my two worst nightmares are at opposite ends of the spectrum, but have the same solution. 1. Sales are terrible because I have little color selection and I return home with lots of inventory left over. 2. Sales are great despite my poor color selection and I return with no inventory and nothing to sell at subsequent shows, perpetuating the "poor color selection" theme.

The solution to each of these is to create two new colors of cloth in eight weeks. Enter apprentices!

Now, these particular apprentices are part of a larger scheme for production expansion. If we can find a loom for Jacob, he and Max will be weaving remotely from Portland or Eugene. Anyone know of a 60" AVL mechanical dobby loom for sale?

[Max at the loom, photo by Jacob]

These guys are amazing. Max was here for four days and Jacob was here for ten. Training was much easier than it might have been because they were able to confer with each other while I worked elsewhere.

Jacob spent three days mostly plying threads for the next batch of cloth while Max and I took turns winding bobbins and weaving. This multitasking meant that the weaving got done at least twice as fast, even while the next batch of cloth was being prepared.

The end result is that we finished weaving most of the black cloth that week. I can hardly believe it. Looking at the calendar, I can see several days where we put in 18-22 hours altogether. And, unlike a regular 18-hour day where I spend half of it winding bobbins, this is something like 18 hours of nonstop weaving. Whoa!

[Piles of cloth waiting to be stitched at the end of "Apprentice Week"]

We also got a great start on the next cloth: sunset red. And after they left I let the rest of the black beam rest on the loom while I got to work full-bore on winding the red beam.

I just checked the calendar and realized that I have only 25 work days before the "big three" shows in Washington. Well, enough chatting then. Back to the loom!

Another New Studio

For those of you who are keeping track, this will be the fourth studio in twelve months.

This time last year, I lived in a tiny cabin. At midsummer, I moved the into the spacious downtown Wolf Creek studio while waiting for other members of the collective to come together. In October, we all moved together into a house in Glendale with a six-month lease, increasing the studio space again.

And here we are now. The six months are up and we've found the place of our dreams. This time we're signing a one-year lease, but the landlord wants us to stay longer. The new studio is even larger than the current one.

While I was at the show last weekend, some others from the group went and saw the place. I saw it for the first time yesterday when we went to sign the lease.

I was so captivated with the house and wanting to get down some measurements to figure out how the studio will lay out that I didn't take any photos.

The house itself is huge - even larger than the one that we're currently in, and much nicer. My studio will be in the detached two-story garage.

The tricky piece to lay out is the upstairs. It's a strange shape which dictates how the equipment can fit up there.

In this image you can see the shape, sort of. The two nooks that will house the looms are 8' high with the left and right sides sloping in. The dotted lines next to the looms indicate the area where the ceiling is less than 6' high, the height of the loom.

Those blue ovals give an approximation of the coverage from my fluorescent fixtures. It's important that I have sufficient light to work, even though the space has little natural light.

You'll notice that the two center fixtures have larger ovals. That's because the ceiling is much higher there, causing them the distribute their light much further and more diffusely.

And then there's the downstairs, the big, open garage space.

That will be storage for yarn, cloth, garments, and booth parts. It will also be the location of the yarn plying, cutting, and sewing areas. And somewhere in there, we'll be installing a kiln.

I did a poor job of measuring the downstairs so I don't know things like how much of the ceiling is covered by the garage door when it's opened, exactly where and what size the built-in workbench is, where the 220 outlet for the kiln is located, etc.

None of that stuff is really critical, though. The important stuff is all slotted into its place in the upstairs.

New Method Of Communicating Weft Colors

As this weaving production scales up, I find that it's necessary to understand the flow of cloth design and creation, for myself and for the others.

Here's the new system that I've come up with. It's a record of all the garment colors that we've created, and a plan for what we'll be doing in the coming weeks.

Each of those spots on the sample blanket represents a garment to weave. From a zoomed-back view, I can ensure that there's a good balance of all the different weft colors, making sure that there's good variety in the finished garments, ie. not too many in one particular range of shades.

Each horizontal line contains four garments, roughly in the order that I'd like to weave them. When each one is done, we cross it off so that the next weaver knows what's been done.

Garments in the middle of a stripe are pure or near-pure versions of that stripe's color. Those on the border are asking for a combination of those two colors. Toward the end of the batch, I'll want to create more combinations than can be represented this way, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

This system has come into being just in time. I'll be away at three shows over the next four weeks, and this system lets others weave while I'm gone.

Cloth Workflow

With a few of us working in the studio now, managing the flow of cloth from threads to customers is becoming more important. Here are the steps to manage once the cloth is woven:

1. Finish. Stitch edges, wash, and dry.
2. Cut. This separates the individual garments from each other. Shawls and scarves are done at this point.
3. Sew. Cloaks and mobius scarves need to be sewn up before they're ready.
4. Waiting. At the end of each beam is a piece of cloth where one or two sections ran out. This can be sewn into shawls or scarves, but requires more problem-solving. As a result, there's a year's worth of it now. I moved it to the front so that I'd remember to do it.

And, finally, here's the final result: unglamorous tubs of merchandise ready to pack in the van and bring to shows.

Four ruanas that show some of the color variation in this beam: grey, green, brown, blue.

A stack of scarves: plain, fringed, and mobius:

Looking Back At 2011

At last, the accounting is done enough that I can feel fairly confident about trusting it. There's still a ton of tiny things to sort out, but nothing that affects the overall picture.

So, let me give a whirlwind tour of the major accomplishments from last year:

December 2010 was the first month that I was independent from my apprenticeship and the income that it brought.

January - Celebrated my first profitable month, thanks to online sales in my brand new Etsy store. This celebration involved buying white yarn and a fantastic tool that I used the heck out of - a cone winder.

February - I wove that yarn into cloth and made garments from them, selling just enough to stay afloat.

March - Ordered blue yarn and started weaving it.

April - Wove a ton of blue cloth. Got a new van!

May - Ordered LOTS of yarn: red, green, purple, brown. Started working toward a new spiritual community with specific other people. Yeah!

June - Ordered more yarn: purple. Replaced the radiator in my van. Announced the new community to our current community. Serpentine is born!

July - Moved into a dedicated studio, brought a new printer, took out a minimal insurance policy. Started acquiring fair-weather booth parts: wood and cloth for a cover. (I wanted a better one, but didn't have the money.) Wove lots of red cloth. Started a Kickstarter project to raise money for yarn. (I didn't mention it at the time, but this was also the month that I started living in my van so I could afford studio rent.)

August - Kickstarter project was a success! Ordered more yarn: blue, purple, and green. Wove more red cloth and started on green. Did the first show using the 8'x8' homemade booth.

September - Wove lots of green cloth. Did more shows with the temporary booth. These paid for the upgrade to a 10'x10' professional booth and some new racks. Kept the van patched together well enough to keep doing shows.

October - Finished weaving green cloth and set up the loom for purple cloth. Did more shows with the new booth. These paid for more booth upgrades. Now there are lights, carpets, dress forms, and more. I upgraded to $1,000,000 in insurance coverage and got a real credit card machine! I also paid for some longterm repairs to the van so it would be more dependable.

November - Moved the studio again, this time into the basement of our winter house. (Not living in a van anymore. Yay!) This included a ton of expenditures: lights, dehumidifier, shelving, and more. Made the last of the repairs to get the van into quite good condition. And, I took a road trip to California to pick up two new AVL looms. One is 60" to help alleviate weaving downtime. The other is a 48" to allow other members of the collective to explore their own weaving.

December - Upgraded the photo studio in preparation for higher-end shows. Now there's a professional backdrop and some neutral clothing for the dress form. Planned the show season for 2012 and found out that all the shows I want to do require their fees to be paid between now and March. If only I had begun the winter with $5,000 in savings, I'd make it easily. Ah, well, live and learn!

Here's another way to look at it - a "net worth" graph. You can see the results of my two goals this year: to pay down debt and to spend money in a way that lets me make more in the future.

Starting in May, you can see that every time I made some money, I paid back some creditors. In August, you can see how much money I spent to get into the show scene. It took two months, but earned it all back by October. In November and December, I didn't make much money, but I did eliminate massive amounts of obligations.

Next year, the sharp upswing in sales (September and October) will not be preceded by large startup costs (August).

And, one more thing about this graph. It makes it look like I have a ton of money. I don't. What I have is a lot of materials and equipment, which roughly translate into opportunity. I don't think craftspeople generally get rich, especially in economic times like these. If I can keep on weaving and keep on getting my cloth into the hands of people who appreciate it, that's what it's all about. And, from the looks of it, I'll get to keep doing it for a while longer.

Studio Move

I'll write another post to talk about why, but here are some pictures of what I've been doing.

The new Serpentine Arts & Crafts Collective has finally found a home to rent for the Winter. One thing that made it easier to afford is the fact that there's room for my weaving studio in the basement.

This truck contains the possessions of 3 people and half of my storage unit.

I left half a day late for Hood River so that I could be there for moving day and celebrate with the community for one evening. When I returned from that show, three of them had left for a two-month camping trip. Did I mention that teaching forest skills will be a big part of our new collective's work?

Next, I had to kludge together a "good enough for now" sewing studio. The reserves of garments are getting low and I've still got two shows this year.

Then came the lighting. The new studio has no natural light so I needed to bring in a lot of light in a hurry. I chose fluorescent, not because I like it, but because of the cost of fixtures and utilities.

Then came storage. The basement has a tendency to be a moist environment. Even though this one is dry and contains a wood-fired furnace that heats it before heating the house, I still need to have all yarn and inventory inside of plastic boxes.

Stacks of boxes make access difficult, so I sought out some shelving. What I found was the right price, but HUGE. Each shelf will take an 8x4 sheet of plywood to finish it and hold 10 boxes when it's done. That's 40 boxes of yarn on one shelf. I got another one that I'll be using for finished cloth and merchandise inventory.

And all the while, I was traveling to work every day and bringing home one vanload of studio every night. You see, I needed to finish winding the deep purple beam before I could move it. I'll post good pictures as soon as I can.

Here's the studio two days ago with the beam all wound and ready to move.

And then, yesterday was the final moving day. I wouldn't have made it if it hadn't been for Wispr. There just aren't enough hours in a day. While I took apart the loom, he removed the air conditioner, packed the first vanload, swept the storage space, spackled the walls, and more. After a 3:00 lunch at home, we went back to move the loom and got it all in the house by dark.

You may have noticed one theme in all of this... Every time I turn around there is more startup cost for the business. It's rapidly depleting the reserves, but there's really no choice. The reduction in rent and space for more people to help with weaving will make it up soon enough, but for now it's a little harrowing to spend so much money.

Slowing Down

This past week my community brought me an experience that's beginning to restore my faith in community.

First, some background... When I discovered the spiritual community that I have called mine for the last eighteen years, there was one feature that caused me to recognize it as the one I wanted. It is a primary tenet which states that each person has a unique life experience and a unique perspective as a result. Nobody can speak for another. Instead, we need to communicate directly, listen to the experiences of others and work together to create a situation that works for all. And far from being just an idea, this was the foundation of the community's structure and everything that happened within it.

The application of this tenet has shifted over the years, apparently without the older members of the community noticing. Sure, lip service is still paid to the concept, but it is not being practiced in everyday life any more.

Instead, the group has succumbed to the same processes that rule the ordinary corporate world. Deceit and political alliances hold the majority of the power. Honesty and openness are punished with one-sided scrutiny, crushing those who jeopardize the power structure and threaten to flatten it.

By failing to recognize that the organization had lost its soul, I continued to operate from a place of trust and openness, rapidly becoming the primary focus of the new kids on a quest for power. I still haven't heard most of the horrible things attributed to me in a two-year secret campaign, but the few that I have heard are unfathomable to anyone who knows me. (Not surprisingly, these stories quite closely predict the actions of the storytellers.) The whole situation has caused me deep pain, ultimately resulting in my decision to leave that community and start over with a few trusted friends and create a new community.

But the pain and distrust have crept far into my soul. It's difficult to see a community that had earned so much of my trust and informed so much of my world view transformed into something so completely the opposite of its foundation.

Still, I have held faith that this new community could embrace the "old" ways and apply them to building a healthy, functional organization. This week, my faith began to be restored.

If you read my blog regularly, you will have no doubt noticed that I work HARD. This ethic is backed up by a sense of responsibility to my community. We are starting over from scratch without the event-based income stream of our previous organization. We also live in the poorest town in one of the poorest counties west of the Mississippi. Work is scarce. Winter is coming. My weaving business has seemed like the best option that we have for an income to sustain us this Winter.

And so, for the good of the group more than myself, I work long hours to crack the puzzle of earning a consistent income from weaving.

The amount of work that I do and the level of responsibility that I take for the success of our new community has been taking a toll on the group. Others are spending time together and strengthening their relationships while I work and work and work. And when I'm not working, my mind is churning on the next days' work. My todo list always has at least fifty "past due" items that won't be done that day.

And this week, the group reached a breaking point. It has become too much.

So they called a meeting to discuss it. It was difficult to hear how my behavior has been affecting them. It was difficult to accept that I need to shift my priorities and change my behavior. And it was difficult to dig into the depths of my life experience and find out why I react this way to an unstable situation. But we did it, together.

I got to hear exactly what behaviors were causing difficulties for others. I got to hear what the group wanted from me. I got to integrate this new information and tell them what I was willing to give. And we got to craft some agreements together that will help us to resolve the situation and move forward.

This is all I've been asking for. I have a lot of personal growth to do. Everyone does. After a few years of painful experience, this new community has come together to support each other with the openness and honesty that will help us to each become the best person that we can be.

And what is the solution to the difficulties? I need to prioritize my relationships as highly as my work. I have set a goal to work four hours a day and spend more time with my friends. We'll be getting to know each other better by hanging out and sharing our hearts to find the common ground that will become the foundation of our new community.

And, in return, others will spend some time traveling to earn an income to help us make it through our first Winter together. We'll be making concessions together to ensure the success of the group instead of letting anyone take the lion's share of work and income-earning potential.

By working together, we've found a solution that meets the needs of all.
This is exactly the type of honest interaction that I've craved over the last few years. I'm sorry that my behavior has caused difficulties for others, but ecstatic that the trust I place in my community is proving to be a wise investment. I can't wait for easier times when we're less focused on survival and more focused on creativity.

Teamwork

The success of last weekend's show created a big todo list for me. This is good.

This week, I researched a number of shows and applied to three of them. I'm moving up to the next level of shows that require early applications and higher fees. They also require things like CDs (!?) or printed photographs of my work and process.

One show has a strange footprint (4'x8') so I pulled out some indoor display racks to see how I would use that space and attract customers from across a crowded ballroom.

And I was able to focus on that stuff because there is a team of us to spread the production around. Wispr began teaching Arcana to weave on the production loom last weekend. And this week, Arcana learned to warp and thread the demo loom. He made one simple mistake and left one section taped to the beam.

To fix it, we had to move six sections over to make room for the missing section. It was easy for two of us. I handed threads to Arcana, who rethreaded them 20 heddles over. Then he threaded the missing section while I finished sleying the other edge of the beam. And during this, Harlan and Jaime kept us company and Audrey took pictures. The only one missing was Wispr, who rested at home while waiting for the ibuprofen to take away his muscle aches.

That's teamwork! Thanks, y'all!

Unfortunately, we're so crunched for time that we had to work until 9:00 last night to get that loom sleyed, tied on and the threading checked. But, the work goes faster and easier with friends. This morning we're packing the van and heading off to Sisters, Oregon. The weather calls for light snow on Sunday. Let's hope it doesn't stop the customers from coming out!

Poof, A Collective!

Wispr and I have been holding down the fort while the rest of the collective did their various things this summer. We're starting to collect together now and it's an exciting time.

Wispr has been sewing while I weave, mostly because some tension issues on the beam have meant that it required lots of fiddling to achieve a decent result. I didn't think it was a very nice thing to ask of a beginner - to fiddle and futz and still have cloth that needs repairs when it comes off the loom. That has settled down, though, and Wispr has been weaving away since last weekend.

Harlan and Arcana returned from teaching and learning at a primitive skills camp just two days ago.

After readjusting to life outside of the forest and figuring out how to plug into the weaving business, they're both jumping into the production.

It's incredible timing for them to have done this. I have just found out that my Autumn show season is all squished into the first three weeks of September. That means there's no leeway to get the next batch of cloth done in time for the shows. It's going to be really tight if it can even happen at all.

I think that with all of us working as much as we can, the first pieces of green cloth should be ready, not for Labor day, but for the following weekend.

I'm also hoping to learn from my mistakes on the last beam and have better tension on the next one so that Wispr can weave on it from the very beginning. That will let work happen while I'm away at the shows. We might be able to have three more batches of cloth done in time for Christmas. Since yarn supply is such a strange beast, I don't really know what colors we're looking at. Probably dark blue, black if I can swing it, and then a brown if I can have my wish.

Oh, and in case you're wondering what I do while these guys are all working...

Respond to yesterday's emails, work on yarn distribution, update my blog, work on internal organization so that we can all work seamlessly and communicate well. In the afternoon when Wispr goes off the swim in the river, I will take over cloth production.

It's really awesome to have these guys around and helping out. It will mean the difference between having green cloth the second week of September and not having it.

Crafts Collective: Why?

Looking back on my blog, I realize that I haven't written about my vision for a craft-based collective in a long time. I've been writing a lot about what I'm doing, but not very much on why.

For many people, the whole idea sounds strange, "You want to live with a bunch of people and make craftwork for a living?"

Well, it all comes down to happiness. I believe that people are happier when they are connected to each other and the world around them. The culture we live in stresses individuality and personal strength over vulnerability and connectedness. Most people in America lament the lack of fulfillment from their day jobs and yearn for deeper connections with each other. I know I did.

I found that my day job felt unfulfilling because there was little creativity and almost no tangible result. How many jobs does that describe? I found that many of the people around me did craftwork as a hobby in order to "get their fix" of creative work.

I've lived in communities with greater and lesser intentionality for many years, but they've never gone deep enough for me. None of them had an agreement of commitment. None of them expected the participants to do the hard work of resolving conflict in order to strengthen and deepen their commitment to each other and the community as a whole.

And that's what I want: a deeply committed community based around connection to each other and the world around us. We work together, build our homes together, and keep items of beauty and meaning in those homes.

Eventually, I want to be able to look around my environment and tell you who built the house, who made the furniture, who made the dishes, and who wove the rug. And by "eventually" I mean "in about 10 years."

This is why I started a weaving business, why I hired my friends as much as possible last year, and why I'm trying to grow this business as fast as I can.

The Kickstarter project I wrote about yesterday (http://kck.st/jmRTRi) is geared toward rolling out lines of weaving as fast as possible so we can market to more lucrative venues and, by next Spring, do some large juried shows.

It's all part of a bigger vision to create a more fulfilling way of life for ourselves and to teach that way to others.

New Workshop Move-In

It's happening! I'm moving the weaving workshop out of my cramped cabin and into a dedicated studio space. The new space is in the heart of downtown Wolf Creek.

When applying for insurance, I found that the building was built in 1859, which is very old for Oregon. That would have put it toward the end of the brief gold rush in this area, and at a time when this town was on the main thoroughfare.

The spaces have obviously been renovated, with modern drywall, light fixtures, and grounded electrical outlets every eight feet.

I'll be using the larger space for the weaving and sewing studio, while the smaller one will be used for storage and perhaps photography. (The panorama software really didn't like that narrow, dark room, but I think you can get the idea.)

Those vertical strips on the wall are channels for adjustable shelving. I just happen to have a box of brackets that fit, which will make the building of shelves super quick and easy.

The move-in is happening one van load at a time. Today the loom moved. (watch for the video tomorrow...)

Starting tomorrow, I will travel to work every day just like normal people. If you've been reading my blog for a while, I'm sure you know just how important it is for me to be seen as normal. (Smirk!)

It will be a big shift, but one that will make for easier, more efficient production, and a nicer living situation. I'll be able to walk across the room without swinging from the loom like a jungle gym!

So Much Change!

...and so little time to write about it.

I'm doing lots and lots of careful accounting in preparation for the next steps in my business and the transition to a new intentional community scenario.

Among the decisions that I've had to make are:

How fast do I need to sell to make rent?
How much can I afford for insurance?
What type of security system do I get?
How soon can I pay for all of my new yarn?
How many shows can I do?
Which ones?
When do I start weaving wool for Winter?

Thank goodness for Quickbooks! Growing a business on a shoestring is tough, but with thorough accounting it gets a lot easier. I may not have much, but I'm making every bit that I have work as hard as it can.