At the Intersection of Warp and Weft: Fibre, Weaving, and the Animate

I reflect an artistic perspective on animacy in my work with various fibres, spinning and weaving to create forms. This research unfolds in the process of making handspun, woven pieces that reference unifying human experiences of transformation. I ask: how does a perspective that acknowledges the animate in the non-human shape my process of weaving and spinning? What do I learn about the surrounding world from animacy? Working with animacy means putting aside expectations, engaging through tactility, noticing small happenings and making with the material. Through my experience of interacting with animacy, this paper might help facilitate the same for others or perhaps shift perceptions of surroundings through an alternative lens that acknowledges that animacy is not solely a human experience. Animacy, an energetic force that has the ability to shape experience, is present in every form the fibre takes. By offering the perspective that animacy, much like human experiences of transformation, is in a constant state of becoming, I invite viewers and readers to find themselves in my work. I make in an embodied, slow-moving, intentional relationship to process that highlights tactile engagement. I reference thinkers and makers who offer different perspectives on making. Patricia Astacio, Donna Haraway, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Jane Bennett are fundamentally intertwined in the methods and development of my understanding of animacy. Bubbling, wispy fibres dance with spun and woven forms. Some fibres float, delicately, or are drawn to spiral into spun thread; others remain determined in their state, refusing to be pulled into the grid of woven cloth. These uncontained, shape-shifting garments merge the internal and the external, creating a boundary space between them. They explore the contrasts of shedding/emerging, decay/evolving. Becoming is connective tissue in both human and non-human experiences.