By Terry Flynn
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March 16, 2024
We are anticipating an early spring in Maryland. We only had one moderate snow of about 5”. This slowed things down a bit, but not enough to have multiple days off from work for braiding. Meantime, I am collecting images for inspiration. I draw inspiration for my braids primarily from playing with color palettes or from my photographs of nature or architecture. While I am not a talented indoor gardener, Amaryllis love my living room, so this winter was brightened by their showy blooms. Since I don’t tag the bulbs, it is always a surprise what order they bloom each year. I love the anticipation since you can see them growing taller and then buds swelling and slowly, very slowly opening. But beware, they become very top-heavy and you will come down one morning and find that a 24” + stalk is lying broken on the floor. They need a pot that is bigger at the base than is typically sold with a it. I add stones in the bottom. Just like braiding, planning is key. No matter how much I think I know about color interaction, there are always surprises when I braid. My students are busy re-teaching me about people’s innate ability to design color ways. I decided to scaffold a weaving unit by starting with a simple basket woven on a poster board form that has 7 spokes. This would give kids practice with plain weave before doing a “spider weaving” on a Chinette plate (23 warps). The focus for the basket was to design a color scheme built around torn strips of printed cotton fabric (tearing rags is jolly good fun), and a novelty yarn that is textured, variegated, and/or ribbon. To these two elements the children choose solid colored knitting yarn. The photograph of the yellow basket that is begun in the photo was woven by a middle schooler who carries his Nemo blanket everywhere. I was busy leading the lesson, helping kids tear fabric, passing around boxes of yarn, and cheering everyone on, so I didn’t notice the remarkable process that had been going on with my buddy until it was time to do an important part of our lesson. I ask the kids to “tell a friend about your work”. I have no talkers in this class of students with autism. All of the students use ipads with voice output. Peter told his adult assistant that his basket made him feel “happy” and then I noticed the blanket. I was blown away! My friend who is fairly inattentive to what his hands are doing with a paintbrush or marker was following a pattern and making considered choices of colors, particularly the variegated ribbon (c. 2010) that was black, blue, turquoise, yellow, and orange. So, if you are having difficulty with choosing colors, try consulting your inner child. Just a little reminder that we often have to turn off the part of our brains that talk in order to access our creativity. Enjoy the coming spring! Terry Flynn