Friday, February 16, 2007

The folks of the guild

The people here at Grunewald really make the place. I can't speak for the summer months, but in the winter the feel of the place is really set by the community of staff members who are here. There are five staff members here at present, and they come from a bunch of different backgrounds. Everyone has their own way of living life and the mesh that this brings in community is rather neat.
Living in intentional community is something that i've done in my own life and I find that I draw a lot of strength and energy from it. Yet, though I might think that "i've done this before" being a part of this community reminds me how unique each experience is. The blend of personal histories, passions and vision always make something new and different. In my own experience a closed community (one that doesn't have members joining or leaving throughout it's span) can change in the period of its existence. Here at Grunewald there are constantly visitors, old and new friends, family members and travelers stopping to share their time and their stories.
This community is continuously open. It may take awhile to understand the rythm and the little nuances are more meaningful once you figure out the relationship behind them. But like any community I will join in the coming years, it's the figuring out that I will enjoy.

Monday, February 05, 2007

Worship

The first Sunday we were at the Guild we had the chance to go with Liz to the small Lutheran congregation in Leavenworth. I think it was called Faith Lutheran. It was cute and quaint, yet modern because Rich had done a mural in the entire worship space. The mural included loaves and fish with the resurrection near by and running water. The pastor, Alex, gave a wonderful sermon that included quotes in memorial of MLK day.

Other times we worshiped were as a community at the Guild with a member of the community leading. Bill lead two and I led one during our three week stay there. Normally it was a "bring your own tradition" thing and could be as structured or unstructured. I went more traditional with a song from the LBW and a meditational piece by Howard Thurman.

crazy weaving

Despite the 3-4 feet of snow on the ground, there was much creativity to be had at the guild. The basics of drawing and such were a nice refresher as it's been a while since any formal art training came my way. With the "big" painting underway, Manda and I learned to weave on looms in the Fiber Arts Studio. This is also the building where our guest rooms were. It was very relaxing once I got past dressing the loom, which took me about 2.5 hours. Weaving also has a rhythm to it similar to a military cadence. The first project I did was a scarf that I gave to my wife, the others were stoles. Of course Manda thought I was going crazy on the loom, but I just wanted to make as many things while at the Guild.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Warping and Wefting

Another one of the arts that we were taught at GG was the art of weaving. At GG they just built a new Fiber Arts building and it houses over 12 looms. Liz is Rich's wife and the co-founder of Grunewald and she was the person who taught us how to weave.

We started off by learning how to dress the looms, that means how to figure out the measurements and products of the piece that we were going to weave and then getting the loom set up and ready to use. This process is way more difficult than one might imagine and can take a few days some times. But we were entirely too eager to let that happen so we did everything that first day. Liz had us use chenile for all of our projects as it has the best lay (meaning it looks good on anyone-ha!). We made a scarf for our first project. We used some sweet yarn for our warp (the threads that lie lengthwise) and then experimented with different colors for our weft (the threads that lie width-wise). Weaving comes with it's own language and we're still arguing as to what terms we have right and which ones we just made up out of thin air.

Liz is a wonderful and patient teacher as well. She is very knowledgeable when it comes to what will work and look nice and what won't and can always figure out where we've gone wrong or why we're stuck. We've been able to spend hours in the studio with her and her dogs, a crackling fire and yarn in all the colors of the rainbow to experiment with. Erica, another staff person and a woman from a nearby town are also weaving this winter and it's neat to see their projects turn out as they complete them. Weaving can be a noisy practice with the banging of the looms, but we've managed to tell stories and generally have a good time after we get a rhythm going.

Scarves completed we move on to making our stoles. Picking out colors to match the liturgical seasons has been wicked difficult for me so i'm making a white stole. This will be something that I can use outside of the worship of a particular parish; baptisms, weddings, dedications....an all-around stole if you please. Justin's gone a little mad if you ask me...he's eager to put this time and equipment to use and he's making a green, blue and a red stole. Ok, to be fair he's only started the red one and will finish it in Chicago...but still.... At least his zealousness gave me time to get a few pictures of the process...

my first time


So yeah, I've never really painted before, and yeah I don't really consider myself an artist, but did that stop me from coming out to GG for three weeks to learn about and create art? no. And i'm glad it didn't. I was a little afraid that I might not live up to the lofty expectations of the Guildmasters or other artists, and maybe I didn't have an artistic bone in my body, but I do love to create and the process brings me a peace and wholeness that I can't describe.

So I felt a little guilty that Justin had to start at the basics with me in drawing and color before we could get our hands on some brushes. When we finally did get brushes in our hands and had practiced a little with the paints and mediums Rich set us up with a still life and put a HUGE blank canvas in front of us. I was frozen with terror. He said to start putting paint on the canvas right away and get the general colors of our composition on there. OH MAN! I don't think i've ever been so intimidated by an inanimate object! But with the support and encouragement of a great artist (two including Justin) I began to put my brush to work.

As we worked Rich began painting a new composition over one of his old pieces that he had decided didn't work. The confidence with which he layer on paint over paint, letting the idea come toward him from the canvas gave me courage that my painting too can be ever-changing. I liked my composition, and my subject was special to me...so I really got drawn into what I was doing.

I love working on the painting for over a week and while there's not a lot happening on my canvas, I worked on each part or piece at least twice before finally leaving it alone. The whole time it was as if I was learning a new way to see things...as if I was seeing beyond what was in front of me and learning to reinterpret that as a representation on my canvas. I learned more about coloring, shadow, space, texture and feeling than I ever knew was there. At one point I had a pepto-bismol pink background and couldn't figure out how I was going to get it to look like fabric. Rich got really creative with some hunter-reflective orange paint and although i'm sure he's right and it does work....I could never see it. Once I changed my background to a color that I liked, I was able to play with technique and color until I saw my vision appear on my canvas. It was awesome.

I'm still not over my fear of a blank canvas...that's still as intimidating as it is exciting. At one point Rich had to give me a deadline and said that every inch of the canvas had to be covered in paint by the end of the day. And I still look at my piece knowing that there are things i'd like to do it it, and that it's not a masterful work of art, but darn it I don't think I did half-bad for my first time! And to me it represents a new love. It was a process that i'll never forget, and one that I want to repeat many times over. Through this painting i've learned to see differently...everything. I have more of an appreciation for the process of making art, rather than being quick to judge a piece on the value of it's end product.