The Arts Talk: Teachings of the Loom

Monday, 10/16, from 12:30-2:00pm, at the B123 SW second-floor lounge.

A companion to The Practice of Weaving exhibition, the talk will discuss the effects and results of 25 years at the quiet, slow, meditative process of hand weaving, particularly the tapestry “Consciousness Only,” inspired by and woven during the artist's study of Hsüan-tsang’s Demonstration of Consciousness Only in the DRBU extension class taught by Professor Doug Powers.

“Today, weaving on a hand loom,” Hoppe comments, “I often think how throughout human time—50,000 years or more, up until a mere 300 or so years ago—all items of material culture were made by hand, with the rhythm of work set not by machines but by the breath and heartbeat of a human. In the case of textiles, each fiber passed multiple times through human hands: in the harvesting or shearing, the washing and preparation for spinning, the spinning itself, the dyeing, the weaving, the fulling, and more. I suspect we moderns could learn—or relearn—valuable lessons in the making of objects from basic materials in such direct, immediate ways, with deep, conscious awareness and presence in the work and by extension in the world.”