Weaving Blind

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A myriad of blues cascades along the warp on one loom like a mountain stream. Reds and golds glow like a summer sunset on an adjacent loom. Each loom tells a different story, just as each weaver has his or her own story to share. The weavers at these looms aren’t drawn to the vibrant colors and may not even be able to imagine the colors they create as they move their shuttles back and forth through the shed. Each of the weavers in this small room is blind or significantly visually impaired.

Louise sits in front of the cascade of blues, looking at her weaving and seeming to ponder her work. Yet Louise isn’t seeing the loom as most people would. After being oxygen deprived at birth, Louise’s eyesight slowly dimmed until she became totally blind. She still has memory of color, so as her warp is described to her she has some inkling of what the colors convey. But it is her tactile view of the warp that is most expressive. Changing the shed and passing her shuttle across the warp, she senses that she’s caught a thread. She carefully feels the edge with her agile fingers. Watching, I cannot see a mistake. When I tell her so, she asks for my hand and then moves my hand to the offending thread. By touch the minute error is quite evident. Louise carefully undoes the caught thread and continues weaving.

At the loom in front of Louise sits Janette who has been blind since birth. She too carefully passes her shuttle back and forth, creating beautiful straight edges and beating a very consistent fabric. In front of Janette, sits Carmen who has been blind for 5 years and is working at such a frenetic pace she cannot stop for any interruption. Her shuttle flies back and forth, back and forth, pausing only long enough for the briefest of beatings.

Then someone calls out, “I need a leg.” I need a leg? Doesn’t sound like a typical request from a blind weaver. This request has come from Pauline. Pauline is 97 years old—nearly 98 she’ll happily announce, and is legally blind from macular degeneration. Her 97 plus years don’t give her quite the strength and agility to release the warp and bring it forward. The rapidity with which her ‘need a leg’ requests are made, indicate just how quickly she is weaving.
So how do all of these talented blind weavers get the warps on their looms? Frances Curran is the creative director of the New Hartford Artisans Weaving Center. She designs the palettes for the warps for each loom and with the support of many local weaving volunteers the looms are carefully prepared. After the fabric is woven, volunteers finish the pieces, creating beautiful scarves, ponchos and bags, which are sold to help support the center.

As I depart the weaving center, the non-stop, interspersed clink of the heddles fill the room. Knobby hands reach out to feel the texture of the threads in the warp and weft. Even the scent of the fibers is alive in this small room as the weavers beat their threads, each to his or her own drummer.