Melanie Olde

Name: Melanie Olde

Pronouns: she/her

Studio location: Canberra, Australia

Website / social links: melanieolde.com, @melanie_olde

Loom type or tool preference: 24 shaft AVL compudobby, 3 back beams

Years weaving: most of my life

Fiber inclination: no preference, though I enjoy new and technical materials

Contact information for commissions and collaborations: please contact via Instagram or contact form on my website.

 

 

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

I was introduced to weaving when I was 4 years old from my mother, but decided I wanted to make it a career from it in my late teens. I studied jacquard weaving in Italy when I was 18 and fell in love with the structure and mechanics – there was so much potential from the person-machine system. My work became more conceptual after I completed my BA in the early 2000s. The wonderful thing about weaving is there’s always ‘new’ to discover – you have thousands of years of weaving knowledge to absorb, so create something extraordinary with it.

My greatest resource as a beginner was a series of industrial weaving journals from the 1920s. They were beautifully handwritten and meticulous in their records – they included swatches, drafts and notes – it felt like the weaver was talking to me decades later. I learned so much by trying to recreate them and modify them.

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?

This is always a difficult question. The definition is not important – it can create too many barriers to curious exploration. People are multi-facetted and I don’t like to be classified as one and not another.

I am fascinated by industrial processes; consider weaving my second language; value quality crafts practices; engage with new technology; strive for conceptual artistic depth; enjoy academic rigor; find research captivating; have been a small-scale production weaver; love making.

3. Describe your first experience with weaving.

As a child my mother first introduced me to handweaving small squares on a frame with handspun yarn. I was fascinated that you could take thread and create a firm, substantial object from it. You could make patterns in it just by moving the thread over and under other threads. A short time after this, I was begging to have a go on her table loom. There were always more variables to explore: patterns, textures, rations of threads, thickness, strength, surface, mechanics.

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 use all sorts of media when I’m thinking through an idea. If I start with an idea kernel but am not sure where it’s going, I’ll sketch, or fold paper, or paint or rework an image digitally. I’ll turn the form over in my head, move the shafts and imagine different yarns and drape effects. When I know roughly what form I want, I’ll sketch it out in different profiles and start allocating shafts.

If it’s a particularly experimental idea, I’ll draft it up fully first – I haven’t found anything like the adrenaline rush I get when I solve a new structure. Warping up provides some time and tactile knowledge to think through and adjust the threading sequence and denting – that’s my calm, happy place.

Next comes testing and experimenting – the most fun! I always aim for the original goal, but I eagerly respond to opportunities that expose themselves – I live for that unexpected surprise. I take a lot of photos from different angles of the fabric in process. Following testing there’s reviewing, responding, adjusting, and retesting.

Finally, there’s the calmness of making the final piece… except it’s never the final piece – it’s just the next step.

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

I have always been fascinated by microscopic natural worlds – the structures, creatures, and systems. Weaving is an analogy for this system in so many ways. For a long time, I’ve thought of plants as living cloth, and weaving as an assembling, growing organism. There are symmetries, cells, three-dimensions and movement in both systems. Recently I’ve been exploring how auxtetic 3D structures can act as ‘artificial life’ systems using embedded technology. I will never tire of exploring and translating the structure of the natural world – it’s a constructed reflection.

 

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

Again, such difficult questions! My favorite part of weaving is making something I’ve never seen before. It’s weaving three-dimensions on a two-plane loom – the pop-up of the layers when they come off the loom. It’s figuring out how to weave three-dimensionally – the challenge. It’s expressing natural systems in my own woven language. That’s the exciting part, but I equally cherish my quiet threading up time – it’s quiet and focused and careful.

My least favorite part is finishing. Metaphorically and practically. If I can find a way to avoid hem-stitch, I will. But sometimes you need to go through the pain to realise the final idea.

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?

After uni, for the next ten or so years, I did try to make a living as a small-run production weaver, tutor and artist. I enjoyed many aspects, but eventually became burnt out from pressure to produce and sell. It took me a couple of painful years to realise I needed a break from that pressure. After the realization, I decided to take the financial pressure off my weaving by taking a part-time job that I also enjoy, but in a different field. This gave me enough space for my creative brain to relax, enjoy and explore. In the last few years, I’ve got my burn back – I can explore, research and create what I want and I have enormous fun with it! I still teach, produce artwork and small production runs, but I’m doing it because I love it.

8. Where do you find inspiration?

This is closely related to my conceptual purpose – my inspiration comes from natural microscopic systems. Cell, molecules and tiny worlds offer so much knowledge if you just look.

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

I’ve been blown away in the last couple of years by finding my tribe – a new wave of weavers determined to push the structure, technology, thought and artistry; it’s been extraordinary to have met – many online – so many weavers I admire. Many of them have interviews here and a lot of them you can find through #weaversofinstagram. It’s a great time to weave.

I don’t want to narrow it down, but Ann Sutton and Junichi Arai have been major influences in my life from their dexterous, original thoughts of what fabric can be.

Artist like James Turrel, Gerhard Richter, Mark Rothko, Sol LeWitt, Eva Hesse, Agness Martin, Rosalie Gasgoine, Anicka Yi, for their diversity of connection and immersion – sublime, chaotic or structured.

Thinkers like Christopher Langton and Jack Burnham for their consideration of the system.

Biologists, mathematicians, industrial designers, architects and engineers.

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

Another difficult question! Biologist, textile conservator, painter, engineer, park ranger. I’ll probably answer something different in a few weeks.

Do you have any upcoming exhibits, talks, or events the community should know about?

In April, I’ll be teaching a few workshops on 3D weaving techniques and speaking at the Creative Fibre Festival in New Zealand, which promises to be excellent fun.

I’ve been writing a lot lately, so keep any eye out for an article or two in the next year or so.