Allie Stone

Name: Allie Stone

Studio location: Tempe, Arizona (occupied O’odham land)

Website / social links: allie-stone.com, @allousto

Loom type or tool preference: Floor loom or backstrap loom

Years weaving: 11+ on and off

Fiber inclination: Cotton, small farm wool & fleece, natural, hand-dyed

Current favorite weaving book: Taller Flora by Carla Fernández

 

 

1. How did you discover weaving and was what your greatest resource as a beginner?

I wove on my first loom in an “Introduction to Fiber and Material Studies” class at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which I signed up for when I was 99% sure I wanted to drop out of school. I didn’t really know what the class title meant at the time, but my professor and long-time mentor Judith Brotman nudged me in that direction, after my dreams of majoring as a master photographer crumbled during a brutally uninspiring first year. She was probably my greatest resource. I don’t know how she knew, but she knew! I practically lived in the fiber studios for the next few years weaving, printing, dyeing, spinning, stitching.

2. How do you define your practice – do you consider yourself an artist / craftsperson / weaver / designer / general creative or a combination of those? Is this definition important to you?

An ever-changing combination. Right now I consider myself a Textile Designer, because I often create with a very methodical, technical, product-oriented approach. The weaving is not usually the end point for me, but it’s always my favorite way to get there. I am a weaver; weaving is an important part of my identity, and I don’t see myself ever not having a weaving practice to some degree. But even after 10+ years I feel as though I’m still a beginner. While art and craft may be present in the textiles I create, they are usually meant to be functional, worn or used by others. Artists undertake a certain responsibility, I believe, to reflect the times, to critically conceptualize and make work that voices something, while designers make objects (or images) to solve problems or serve purpose. I fear losing a much needed fluidity between both by putting myself inside one box, so my “title” will always be what I feel is the most encompassing for all of my work at the time.

3. Describe your first experience with weaving.

In the first fibers class I took, we covered all the basics: embroidery, stencil printing, felting, etc. None of which really excited me until we dressed a loom in what I thought were some pretty ugly shades of green and brown. As our professor showed us how to wind the warp, thread a 4 harness loom, demonstrating how the sequence of threads all raise and lower, pack in over and under one another to make cloth - I was enamored and captivated.

 It’s proven that we’re best at memorizing by “chunking” or grouping numbers, especially in threes or fours. I grew up playing string instruments and eventually percussion until college, and this theory remains true in memorizing melodies and rhythms, which are most commonly measured by four or three beats. As our professor kept verbally repeating different treadling variations of plain weave and twill to remember for our samples we had to weave during the week, everything clicked and switched on in my head. Using the loom was like a rhythmic instrument.

 Memory, the physical and intangible - of the cloth and of the mind, the repetition, the rhythm of the body at the loom, the patterns, series, sequences, all of these elements drew me into the processes of floor loom weaving. Once I started weaving, it was all that I wanted to do. I cherished that first little sample, and I signed up for every weaving class I could fit in my schedule for the rest of my years in school.

4. What is your creative process, from the initial idea to the finished piece? Are there specific weave structures, looms, or fibers that are important to your process?

I almost always imagine or sketch the finished textile first. I dissect it in my mind, transferring it to grid; I rarely work intuitively at the loom. I really hate making waste, so I calculate every thread, every space, and if I make a mistake or am unhappy with my weft I will most likely unweave it. If I’m cutting and sewing the weaving, I’ll calculate my washing-shrinkage beforehand so I’m not over-weaving what I need for the end product. I try to use my selvedges as edges in cut patterns, so that what I sew has the most structural integrity I can manage.

A lot of this is reflective of the approach of traditional backstrap weaving methods where garments are efficiently patterned from square or rectangular woven panels. Nothing makes me quite as satisfied as designing and weaving an off-the-loom construction, that only requires stitching for a final product. My “current” favorite weaving book above, has some of my favorite illustrations depicting these methods traditionally practiced by several Indigenous tribes of Mexico. Fernández dives into The Geometry of Indigenous Clothes Making.

I currently work most on a vintage 4 Harness Leclerc M-Series Loom, but don’t often use it to weave more than I could weave on a backstrap loom, it’s just less demanding on my body. I typically weave plain weave and “draw” patterns with brocade or inlay. If I’m weaving threaded patterns, I still stick to pretty basic twills. Despite all my meticulous calculated methods, the one variable I love to introduce a bit of uncertainty with is hand-dyed yarns, especially indigo.

5. Does your work have a conceptual purpose or greater meaning? If so, do you center your making around these concepts?

For me, weaving is processing, meditation. When I’m processing negative energy, it affects my work negatively. The textile records and remembers the weaver’s hand. Since most of what I make is being passed to others, it’s important for me to weave in a state of peace of mind - open, whole. To say that it has been incredibly difficult to find time to do this during a pandemic, is a vast understatement.

My work usually begins with a concept, something I want to represent which can be objective, or an abstracted reference that maybe is only apparent to me. Sometimes I’m just making texture for the later form. No matter the approach, while weaving I am always processing and considering self, place and identity. I’m drawn to the traditions of weaving, the lineage of the craft and what learning it has connected me to. Although, having originally learned weaving in an institutionalized setting, from weavers succeeding the colonial legacies of weavers of the Modern art movement, I am constantly thinking through this lineage. As a weaver of Mexican and European heritage, everything I weave reflects this dichotomized relationship.

 

6. What is your favorite part of the weaving process and why? What’s your least favorite?

I fully and wholly appreciate all parts of the weaving process for different reasons. My favorite part may be cutting off and seeing/feeling how the finished textile exists off the loom, or having just perfectly tensioned a warp before dropping into the bench and beginning the weaving. If I had to pick a least favorite though, it would probably be rewinding a bobbin or shuttle when it interrupts that meditative headspace while mid-weaving. If I could get used to giving myself more breaks, I’m sure I could enjoy this part just as much as the rest.

7. Do you sell your work or make a living from weaving? If so, what does that look like and how has that affected your studio practice?

I do sell my work, but I don’t make a living solely from weaving. I co-manage a screen printing business and clothing line with my life partner, so I do make a living from textile work in general. So far I’ve never found myself in the position that I feel my work is compromised or dictated by financial necessity, but finding time to make and especially weave, is what is most difficult to manage. Teaching weaving, commissions and product sales have supported me in experimenting and learning to further my craft, and I will always be grateful for having those opportunities and experiences.

8. Where do you find inspiration?

I’m still new to the desert, so being here, nature, water, sky, really move me to create and influence my dye materials, techniques, colors and patterns. Also, movements, in every sense of the word.

9. What other creatives do you admire – weavers, artists, entrepreneurs – and why?

There are literally so many...the majority of my friends are artists and entrepreneurs, and I admire all of them! I admire the artists and weavers keeping their traditional values alive, passing on the knowledge of their craft. I admire the designers, artists and makers changing the industries as we know them. I admire the artists using their creations to implement change.

I admire master weaver Eufrosina Vásquez López and thank her deeply for teaching me traditional Mexican backstrap weaving in Oaxaca. 

I admire the work and performances of Ann Wilson. I was in a weaving class that stood-in for one of her Wind-Up: Walking the Warp study rehearsals. Her work will always remind me that there is significance and beauty in every tool and every process, and in how the weaver interacts with and moves in space.

10. If you could no longer weave, what would you do instead?

If I could no longer weave, like ever again? I would probably cry - a lot. And then maybe dye...more yarn, for other weavers, so I could still see something I made live on in cloth.