Monday, July 26, 2010

Jig...jig...JIG!

This was the jig Cameron built yesterday. Then I went home and reviewed field work footage from Korea and realized that there was a much simpler, more elegant way of building a jig.

This is the jig I started this morning, now that I love building things, and Tom helped me finish it.

I wasn't thrilled about how close the vertical supports were, so I took the partially-woven screen off and went back to the work bench.

This one works much better! Mondays are super since we're officially closed and no one comes in. So Tom and I were able to get a lot of work done in relative peace. Marcus came in, Susan dropped in for a bit, and Cameron stopped by with his mom, but otherwise it was quiet. Which meant HUNGRY mosquitoes that were all over me.

This is how you make bobbins when in close proximity to a letterpress studio. The good news is that I can tie two half hitches w/o looking at diagrams and can do a bobbin slip knot. Also, when knots fall out, you can do Korean weaving the American way, which entails taping the line to the weight. Today was a lesson in why tradition stands. So often, novices wonder, 'why do we have to do it this way?' and try new ideas. Which is great. But in cases like this, tools are the way they are b/c they work. Someone else has figured out all the kinks. Either you go on faith and follow the tried-and-true model, or you don't and learn why that model works. And if you're really lucky, you tweak and improve things.

2 comments:

mjc said...

I read this this morning, and then ran across this quote, " We cannot live fully without the treasury our ancestors have left us. Without the story - in which everyone living, unborn, and dead participates - (humans) are no more than bits of paper blown on the cold wind..."
George Mackay Brown, Winter Tales, 1995

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