My mother was a seamstress. She spent her days making custom drapery on a large table in
the basement. As a small boy, I spent much of my time sitting on the
basement floor playing with scraps of drapery cloth and occasionally playing
with the embroidery stitches on my mother's sewing machine. I believe this
is where I got my love of cloth and my fascination with the structure and
design of fabric. Later in life, I learned that my great, great, great,
great, great grandfather came to this country in 1700 and settled in what is
now West Virginia. He was a weaver. Some of his sons were weavers, and
some of his grandsons. I think both my mother's tutelage and my ancient
ancestry have both contributed to my weaving teacher's observation that I
seem to possess a natural talent for weaving.
I've always been
artistic but have no formal artistic training. I majored in mathematics in
college and have been employed in the high-tech arena for the last 30 years.
Weaving initially interested me as an exercise in applied mathematics. The first
"computer punch card" was
invented by Jacquard to drive his intricate coverlet loom. I started to
weave in the late 80's after taking a beginner's class. I was looking
for a relaxing hobby that would take me away from the high-tech high-stress
world of computers and networks. Weaving
has since become a passion. I retired in 2004 from the high-tech world to
pursue handweaving full-time. There is nothing more fulfilling than to
create something of beauty, something tangible, with your own hands.
Consistent with the idea of
traditional craft, I have limited my technological advantage to 8-shaft
patterns. The types of weaving machinery available to the fiber artist forms
a continuous curve of complexity from the simple backstrap looms of every
country's indigenous peoples to the fully-automated, computer-assisted
looms of the modern textile mills. I believe many fiber artists today, in
the quest for art, cross an arbitrary line from "handweaver" to
"fabric designer". For me,
handwoven cloth must be completely made by human energy and, more
importantly, the pattern must be executed from the memory of the weaver, not
stored as a computer program which can be infallibly
replicated time and again.
Fred
S. Ullom