Interlacing Arts

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

When I started this blog in August of 2020, I envisioned writing one monthly. Well, here it is February 2024 and I am finally standing my ground with all the other demands of what my daughter Kelly calls "adulting" and I am taking "me time" relearning how to build my website. So you will see that this is a work in progress. We all remember 2020 as the year that COVID changed our lives. I learned how to teach art virtually to my students who have multiple disabilities. I didn't miss the hour + of commuting every day but I worked at least as much overtime trying to create lessons that my kids could participate in. I created art kits that included tempera paint (easier to control than watercolor) and yarn for a spider weaving lesson. I also included construction paper in students' favorite palettes. One big plus was that I was teaching in my students' homes and I got to know many of our families and they got to see art in a different light. I had private lessons for some students and a few excelled in ways they had never done in person. And of course I lost contact with some students as well. We had a malware attack and I was one of the lucky ones who didn't loose my years of lesson plans. Life was full of surprises. My garden got more attention than usual and was a source of solace. I find weeding and digging therapeutic, especially when I am angry about things that I can't control or change. With my classroom in the living room alcove, I got to see birds at my feeder that I had never seen before! I missed them when I returned to the building. I taught co-taught two virtual classes for Red Stone Glen Fiber Workshop in October and November of 2020 with my partner Rodrick Owen in Oxford, England while I was broadcasting from Baltimore. Sara Bixler was an amazing support. We taught a combined Andean Headband Braids class with Beginning Marudai. That was a bit of an adventure while we learned how to manage breakout rooms and presenting in a program unfamiliar to me. Our second class was Takadai with both new and former students. We all learned a lot. The hardest thing for me was not being able to clearly see how students were working. What did their braid look like? How were they making their shed or holding their sword? There were problems that could have been prevented if we all the right tech equipment and knew how to set it up, but we were all learning how to function in a virtual setting. We all did very well despite the challenges. In the summer of 2021, I taught two virtual classes for the American Kumihimo Society, Exploring the Possibilities of Andean Braids and Manipulating Color and Structure in Takadai Braids . For the second class I further developed my work on shadow weave and designed new color ways for rep braids found in Rodrick's takadai book. This was a different style of virtual class for me as it was dependent on my video presentations of content and then question and answer periods with students. I believe that these two classes will soon be available on the AKS website. Finally, last summer (June 2023) I taught a takadai class at the MidAtlantic Fiber Conference at Millersville University in rural Pennsylvania. It was my first time back teaching in person and it was a treat! I saw old friends and made new ones. Students could learn from each other in ways that aren't possible in a virtual class. A personal goal was to improve my skills at reformatting takadai diagrams in order to make them easier to follow. I made some headwa y with that. I hope to feature student work in a separate post. I am looking forward to teaching again at Red Stone Glen Fiber Workshop in Fall 2024. Both are two-day weekend classes: Braiding on the Takadai, October 19 & 20 (for which there is already a waiting list), and Making Japanese and Andean Braids on the Marudai, Nov. 9 & 10. The marudai class is for beginners and beyond. This is a great opportunity to learn to use the core frame if you haven't tried it yet or if you need a hands-on class. Unfortunately there wasn't time to add in an Andean Headband Braid class. Long-range, I am involved with the Braid Society in a project for creating a series of monographs based on Rodrick's research into making these unique flat braids. I am pleased to announce that I will be teaching two classes at the 6th International Braids Conference, Summer 2025 - Rocking Braids and Bands to be held in Cleveland, Ohio. Information to come. I am now in my 19th year teaching Art for Baltimore County Public Schools. I am hoping to retire in June 2025. Meantime, my alter-ego is still working hard to find time to continue following my passion for creating and teaching textile arts. Learning to fill these pages with things I want to share is part of that journey. Part of that is letting go of trying to make everything fit perfectly. Some of the graphics on this post have scrambled themselves and I am not happy with the spacing, but here goes. I am going to post anyway. Terry

Welcome blog post from Terry Flynn at Interlacing Arts. Announcing her new video class, "Beginning Braiding on the Marudai", available from Taproot Video.