Initially, I was going to write a post about one of the old notebooks from my stash. However, I feel like I need to stop and write about the woman who gave me this notebook, Ms. Ida Grae. At the end of 2020, when everything was still shut down, a person contacted our guild asking if anyone would like a free storage unit full of weaving stuff. It was kicked around, and somehow, I was asked if I was interested. To which I responded "heck yeah!" Looking back, I was probably the only one willing to rent a U-Haul drive it 20 miles to meet with a random person during lockdown, but hey, I never said I was completely sane. First, this stash could’ve set me up for being a weaving teacher instantly because of how many looms were inside this storage unit. There were seven Gilmore floor looms, four were narrow (24-36”) floor looms, two of them were 8-shaft 45” floor looms (one being a double warp beam which I tried to hang on to but failed), and one 4-shaft 72” wide loom (which was sold to a lady who wanted it for weaving Frank Lloyd Wright-style pieces). There was also one LeClerc 4-shaft floor loom, that was missing something, so I posted it as free and a lovely lady from the Philippines, who moved to San Francisco, took it. She told me that she weaves with a group of other Filipinos and they specialize in traditional Philippine cloth. She described a pattern using circles that they would weave because the circles looked like whirlwinds to the gods, thus making the evil gods would assume there was already mischief happening and ignore the men at sea. Lastly, there was the 4-shaft countermarche that I regrettably threw away because I couldn’t quickly put it together and I had no idea the value of it until just recently. After the floor looms there were also six steel table looms, two rigid heddle looms, and some tapestry looms. Here are some links if you are curious about Binakol cloth. Next was the massive number of boxes full of yarn. There were well over a hundred boxes, and they had all been sitting in this storage unit for 30 years. Looking through the boxes, I kept finding sand over all the yarn. Later, I found out the sand was clothing moths eggs. So basically, there were so many moths that there was an entire layer of eggs coating her beautifully hand-dyed wool yarns. Luckily, some yarns survived. Obviously, none of the wool did, but I quickly learned what was wool, cotton, silk, or linen. The cotton and linen weren’t bothered at all. And the silk would be fine if it wasn’t in the same container as the wool. I say all of that to lead up to how I ended up learning about Ida Grae of Mill Valley, Ca. Starting with her stash I learned she loved weaving and enjoyed making eccentric modern art. Like the wall hangings I found below. The pattern and muted colors suggest modern crisp lines, but her method is unusual because she uses inch wide clear plastic strips as her pattern warp. She also enjoyed unique clothing, both ethnic and artistic. I found several awesome garment pieces that I've kept for when I have a gallery to showcase them. And it seems I had only a small fraction of her garments since her son-in-law stated they took most of the garment boxes out of the storage unit already. She also had a studio in the hills of Mill Valley, because of the several flyers I found referring to the classes available. It looked beautiful with all the trees and foliage surrounding the big open windows with looms everywhere. I also found a cute flag that would be a fun piece for her studio. After that I looked up her books; Dressing the Loom (published in 1953) and Nature's Colors: Dyes from plants (published in 1974). You can find the book about dressing the loom on the arizona.edu website look under Grae. It looks like a helpful book for getting started with weaving, and considering she was an avid teacher I bet she used it in her classroom as well. The Nature's Colors book isn't on the arizona website but I was able to find myself a copy of it. The book cover talks about how it is the first book specific to North American dyestuffs. In the acknowledgements Ida Grea thanks Dr. Elizabeth McClintock, the director of botany at California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco for consulting and critiquing the book. She also lists a few other doctors in her thank-you so I wonder if she was a confident and avid learner. The book cover also states that she taught dyeing, spinning, and primitive weaving at the College of Marin and was formerly the president of Designer Craftsmen of California. Which I can't find anything about but I'm assuming it was some kind of group of artisans who pooled together for art exhibitions and sales in the area, maybe like the American Craft Council. Then about a year later when I was reading through Shuttle Spindle and Dyepot I came across a two page layout of Ida Grae's interview with Suzan Kaplan in the Fall 1974 issue. It must have been a promotion for the Nature's Colors book because the issue came out a few months before the official release of the book. From listening to people she also taught at the Mendocino Art Center which looks like a very popular arts workshop space, that I should probably check out sometime considering it is only about an hour from my house. Sadly, that is the little bit I know of Ida Grae and her rather large mark on the weaving community here in the north bay. I’m sure I’ll keep learning more about her as I continue my weaving path. It’s wonderful to have a glimpse at such a prominent weaver in this area. It almost makes my dreams of hand weaving seem possible.
I wonder what her background was. Did she go to college? Did she have a fine arts background of some kind? How did she learn to teach? What made her so interested in natural dyes? Did she ever run into Dorothy Liebes? (That last one is solely because one of my favorite goof off websites is Dorothy Liebes' online library.) There are a lot of questions I have about Ida Grae and her blessing to me of a complete weaving studio, I only hope sharing her legacy is a decent enough thank you.
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Author: Vader
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