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Weaving Workshop Weekend 2024 at LMRM Chicago

Weaving Workshop Weekend 2024 at LMRM Chicago
by
October 15, 2024
in Artists, Industry, Makers Spaces
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The Weaving Workshop Weekend (WWW) 2024 was a vibrant celebration of LMRM’s first year of opening TC2 loom rentals to the public, as well as of LMRM’s growing community in and out of Chicago. Featuring renowned artists, interactive studio tours, and new publications, WWW showcased LMRM’s commitment to redefining weaving as a contemporary art practice while fostering a community that values accessibility, innovation, and shared knowledge. Below, the people behind the LMRM – Hope Wang and Murat Ahmed – give us a recap of the event…

Weaving Workshop Weekend (WWW) acted as a culminating celebration of LMRM’s first year of public programming around our TC2 loom. Since relaunching, LMRM has hosted several weaving workshops, started multiple collaborative projects with artists, and supported over 15 weavers looking for continued independent access to a TC2 loom.

Over 3 days, WWW gathered almost 200 attendees over a condensed series of artist lectures, topical workshops, a book release, a group exhibition, and open studio tours of various textile-related community resources in the city. WWW’s programs showcased the experimental practices of 4 featured artists whose works explore a variety of themes and weaving techniques. This weekend served as LMRM’s final act for 2024 public programming, as well as a gesture of gratitude for our developing relationships within the larger community of digital weaving.

Friday October 4, 6-9 PM

Opening Reception of Sample Path

 LMRM is grateful to Cathryn Amidei, Danielle Andress, Jovencio de la Paz, and Poppy DeltaDawn, who were our featured artists of WWW 2024. On Friday night, we celebrated with an opening reception for Sample Path, a group exhibition highlighting the works of each artist.

With artists traveling in from various cities, it was a wonderful evening for old friends to reconnect in Chicago, meet new ones, and for everyone to kickoff a whirlwind weekend of programs together.

Saturday October 5, 9 AM – 1 PM

Artist lectures by Cathryn Amidei, Danielle Andress, Poppy DeltaDawn, and Jovencio de la Paz

We shared an incredible morning of thoughtful exchange and inquiry during back-to-back artist lectures led by Cathryn Amidei, Danielle Andress, Poppy DeltaDawn, and Jovencio de la Paz.

Between a mix of experimental writing and academic research, each of them presented on topics related to their digital weaving practice. The lecturers guided us through vibrant conversations about access to tools, translation of ideas and knowledge, concerns around complicated histories, and the possibilities open to us as contemporary makers. The air was mixed with gratitude and awe as each lecture overlapped with the next, tying disparate topics into a continuous thread of discourse.

Together, we spent the morning appraising the future of this medium and tool. There was a persistent through line that though knowledge exists in our minds, physical objects, math, and more, it is always activated through the tension of culture, and in communion with each other. These brilliant speakers ignited a passion that we all indisputably share as weavers, artists, scholars, and educators.

The artist lectures were a hybrid format between in-person and virtual attendees.  We were joined by almost 75 listeners who traveled across or logged on from all over Chicago, the US (21 different states!), Canada, the UK, and Norway.

Saturday October 5, 3 PM – 6 PM

Workshop led by Poppy DeltaDawn

In The Warp is the Weft: Design Through Doing, Poppy DeltaDawn expanded upon the design traditions of Mise-en-Carte, or the point paper plans that 18th century weavers of Lyon worked from to manufacture silk. Using the digital canvas, ratios, and mathematics, Poppy led attendees in a demonstration of how she intuitively designs with both warp and weft in mind. Poppy emphasized her approach to “painting with pixels,” stretching our minds as she arranged layers of thread interlacements in Photoshop that responded to the tricolor warp LMRM installed for the season.

Paired with the release of her first publication with LMRM, Poppy’s in-person workshop also served as an appetizer for the design methodologies she expands upon in Ratio. Intermingled with personal essays, historical accounts, and instructional manuals for digital loom file-design, Ratio is both a love letter to artists working on the TC2 digital jacquard loom, as well as to the long lineage of weaving and loom technology. We are honored and thrilled to usher this book into the world.

Sunday October 6,  9 AM – 12 PM

Workshop led by Jovencio de la Paz

In Introduction to Coding for Weavers, Jovencio de la Paz demonstrated a workflow that they often employ within their own weaving practice.

Jovencio encouraged an attitude of play and improvisation as they prompted ChatGPT to write more specific code for users to drop into Processing, a software sketchbook that offers different visualizations of coding instructions, and then filled the graphics with weave structures in Photoshop. They worked with attendees to navigate their curiosities at LMRM’s TC2 loom, responding to individual requests and queries around double cloth and waffle weave structures.

The morning had an air of quiet excitement as Jovencio deftly cleared a path forward for attendees to think through the loom beyond of photographic images.

Sunday October 6, 1 – 4 PM

LMRM Open Studio Hours

Our doors were open for an afternoon of tours around our weaving studio and demonstration of our loom equipment. We talked about Ratio, our first ever LMRM publication, and basked in the final hours of a vibrant inaugural Weaving Workshop Weekend.

We were happy to welcome a guided CXW tour led by Stoodio. As one of two places in the USA to offer public access to a TC2 digital jacquard loom, we love sharing about how cool our big loom is. One of our favorite moments to witness will always be the first sound of awe (silence) when our loom turns on and huffs as it lifts its threads. The perfect cocktail of magic and human ingenuity!

LMRM was also a partner on Chicago Exhibition Weekend 2024 (CXW), which was presented by Gertie and EXPO Chicago. CXW 2024 is an annual weekend spotlighting Chicago’s vibrant cultural landscape and artistic spirit for locals and visitors alike.

Picture Courtesy: Felton Edward Kizer

Sunday October 6

1 – 4 PM, LMRM Open Studio Hours

Our doors were open for an afternoon of tours around our weaving studio and demonstration of our loom equipment. We talked about Ratio, our first ever LMRM publication, and basked in the final hours of a vibrant inaugural Weaving Workshop Weekend.

We were happy to welcome a guided CXW tour led by Stoodio. As one of two places in the USA to offer public access to a TC2 digital jacquard loom, we love sharing about how cool our big loom is. One of our favorite moments to witness will always be the first sound of awe (silence) when our loom turns on and huffs as it lifts its threads. The perfect cocktail of magic and human ingenuity!

LMRM was also a partner on Chicago Exhibition Weekend 2024 (CXW), which was presented by Gertie and EXPO Chicago. CXW 2024 is an annual weekend spotlighting Chicago’s vibrant cultural landscape and artistic spirit for locals and visitors alike.

This program is partially supported by a grant from the Breakout Foundation’s Chicago Community Fund Fellowship, in partnership with Gertie. CCF supports individuals and organizations dedicated to driving positive change, fostering connections, and creating lasting impact in Chicago. We also thank our WWW volunteers, for whom this endeavor would have been an impossible feat without: Louisa Zheng, Thương Hoài Trần, Jun Yu Tan, Wendy Lu.

Accompanying Exhibition

Sample Path

October 4 – November 9, 2024

LMRM is thrilled to present Sample Path, a group exhibition featuring new works by artists Cathryn Amidei, Danielle Andress, Jovencio de la Paz, and Poppy DeltaDawn. It’s important that art gets made. There is no other way for us to respond to ideas. In the process of materializing new ideas into the work we see, artists traverse a meandering path of decisions. With each binary choice an artist makes, the map of possible outcomes doubles. And as such, this series of related choices in a creative decision tree grows exponentially. However, what we observe is always but a single, particular realization of the creative process. There exist many [infinite] such paths and these works, this show, is one such sample path.

Viewing Hours: by appointment only

ABOUT LMRM

LMRM  (“loom room”) is a project space, center for community resources, and gathering place which serves the fiber and textile communities of Chicago. LMRM is currently one of few places in the world offering public access to a TC2 digital jacquard loom and the only one in the U.S. with an open studio model: no residency applications, and no university enrollment. Through programs such as rental equipment, workshops, events, and collaborations, LMRM strives to emphasize weaving as a contemporary art practice.

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