Weaving Together Fiber and People

Tom Jipson’s introduction to weaving was accidental. It started with a gift he bought for his sister-in-law in the early 70s, a book about Navajo weaving.

“She was really totally disinterested in it and gave it back to me the next Christmas, along with a primitive loom,” he recalled.

The re-gifted package had a completely different effect on him. “It was one of those things where you’re sort of instantly in love,” he described.

At the time, he was a Head Start teacher, so becoming enamored with fiber was something totally out of the blue. But in some ways, it made perfect sense.

“One of the things I discovered about myself is I really responded well to having a physical product at the end of the day,” he noted.

For years Jipson sold his own work – intricately woven scarves, shawls and throws – at the League of NH Craftsmen’s Fair and at other events for artisans, but now his primary focus is teaching.

“After you’ve been doing something for decades, you realize that you have things to share,” Jipson said. He’s now been teaching for more than 35 years at Harrisville Designs, which manufactures high-quality yarn, looms and accessories and also offers workshops with a number of exceptional instructors, like Jipson.

Watching others fall for fiber the way he did is a special part of the experience for him. “It’s really nice to see people discover something that they’re going to love,” he said.

His classes are unique, typically incorporating weavers at various levels of experience, from beginners on up. While he usually has to run around quite a bit, he said he wouldn’t have it any other way because “the peer to peer interaction that occurs… is really important.”

He teaches from 8 to 5 and then goes home, but his students have access to the studio for 24 hours a day. Participants, who travel from all over the country to attend, are encouraged to stay at the Cheshire Mills Boarding House, just a quick walk away, so “they can go back and keep working with each other,” Jipson said.

“There’s often a group of people trying to solve the problems. They need to rely on one another,” he described. While you might assume students with more experience would end up taking the lead, there tends to be a creative feedback loop that everyone participates in.

“Sometimes people are a little intimidated by the loom itself. But I’ll tell you, after five days… in my class, people can go home and weave,” Jipson said.

It’s challenging work, and he pushes students to try each aspect of weaving repeatedly, so they’re prepared to do it successfully on their own.

“The first thing you gotta learn is how to set the loom up,” he explained. The set-up is called a warping procedure, and it involves a series of steps. However, every student does it several times during the five-day class, and Jipson pointed out that repetition is important.

Source: http://www.sentinelsource.com/elf/by_hand_by_hobby/weaving-together-fiber-and-people/article_45b03c66-17f2-11e8-8241-cfe79599e803.html