I want to acknowledge that I am situated on the unceded, ancestral, and traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

How do I find peace? Meditating, Listening to signing bowls, frequencies, Being still In nature, By water and plants, Making art, In my garden, Listening to birds….

My Loom

I was born in Montreal on unceded, ancestral, and traditional territories of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians, Ho-de-no-sau-nee-ga (Haudenosaunee), and Mohawk Nations. I grew up in a multicultural environment, surrounded by peoples of many different nationalities, races, religions and my parents were both born in Italy. I would like the loom to represent my Italian heritage, and a nod towards the nations on who’s land I call home. The Italians mostly used Jacquard looms from XIX° century and I came across photos of women weaving on simple wooden frames. I would also like my loom to represent the feminist and multicultural perspectives I hold in my practice, so I could weave as an ally and supporter of many peoples. When I think of my past (as a child) it is the actions of those around me, both those actions that aligned with my inner compass and also those that made no sense. Those little incongruences, like being told to respect adults who showed no respect for me or others around us. That shaped me. I saw it. I also saw the frustration in the elders (mainly my grandmother) who had to dance around this. I saw how my grandmother hid food in her apron and rushed to the door when the bell rang on Christmas Day. And my uncle (by marriage) yelling, “Don’t give that piece of shit anything.” My grandmother with the scared look of a child approaching the front door, my father opening the door offering the gift of conversation. The homeless man on the other side, grateful. I saw that. That shaped me. So my loom would be my inner essence, my spirit, and my willingness to shed free from the ideas and rules and customs that did not serve me or those around me. I am grateful for my rich family life filled with different ways of being. I decided I would create my loom with the sturdy frame of an old 8x8 inch stretched canvas. I grabbed some nails that would do to hold the warp. Grabbed a hammer and thought I would just go for it, until I realized, this needed more thought. How will I make sure that the nails on top and bottom were aligned. Does it matter? It mattered. Then I wondered, how far apart do the nails need to be? Does it matter? Maybe not that much. I thought lined paper would give me straight lines from the top nail to the bottom and create a nice and consistent gap between the nails. I taped a square piece of lined paper onto the opening in the back of the canvas and started nailing down the nails.

The invisible forces that created me were very strong, both the good and the ugly. Despite contradictions, I always found a way to know the truth. I have decided to use a loom that will not be part of my finished work. I want to move forward without contradictions, but part of me feels very strong that the essence of what created me, not the different people, but maybe the essence, spirit, something guided me to my truth. Maybe that is the connection to my ancestors. Despite all the corruption there is a vein of light. And that is what I’m grateful for.

The Warp

The I (that is me) is always creating, experimenting and breaking down boundaries. I work outside the box by mixing different mediums. And collaboratively combining different skills to create a cohesive final product. Despite all of this, despite my strong felt sense of who I was, there was always a sense of inadequacy and unworthiness and I dealt with this by painting myself as someone other than who I really was so as to “fit in”. But, I can see how the aspect of who I am has been grounded in all the different roles I’ve played. I choose a simple but common and trustworthy cotton thread that has some flashes of colour, to represent times when I tried something new, maybe, put on a different persona, only to leave it and become myself again. Mind: Reliable Body: Strong Soul: trusting

I wanted the warp to be tight so it could hold my anger at the world’s (and my childhood) injustices. I wanted it to have a pattern, too reflect the rhythmic beauty in nature and even just all the patterns we see in nature, there’s a repetition and consistency that is calming. It’s calming to look at something with an identifiable and simple pattern. I wanted the threads to be evenly spaced and absolutely vertical, not on an angle. That became challenging. I tried several ways of wrapping the thread, but settled on vertical warp with a pattern of alternating between two different sized spacing. The Warp represents: Mind: calm, satisfied Body: tense, stressed out The constant me: Calm in the face of a storm.

Weaving My Story

Once satisfied with the warp, I began to weave. I used the waiving as a mindfulness practice, checking in with my thoughts, feelings, the state of my body. I loved using twining to represent the stress of my thoughts and in my body, but it also served as a calming ritual. I learned to let go of the stress and lean into the calm of the repetitive ritual of weaving. I thought of what brought me peace and wove that into the story as I listened to frequencies and signing bowls and sometimes just the birds outside in my garden. I added lavender from my garden, a twig from my dogwood bush, a wooden stick given to me my my youngest child, ribbon from an old gift, lace that I used to decorate my kids clothes. And, occasionally, I would stop and ask myself, and the piece, what it needed. I learned to listen to my felt sense, so that the piece could build itself.

I loved working in a way that required me to think of the world I was created into (the loom), identify strengths and my constant (the warp) and then the weaving just became my present. The process felt like creating closure over so many things I don't want to bring forward into my future.