I have been planning this for about a year and have kept it mostly to myself for all of that time which can be difficult for me. I didn’t know if Covid would allow me to actually go. But I’ll be heading to the Textile Center in Blönduós, Iceland soon. I’m going to be working with Icelandic wool and ways to use it for tapestry weaving.
When you can only bring a very small amount of stuff for a residency that feels quite long, the challenges of packing compound. I am that person who wants to have all options available at all times and it is clear that that is not possible in this case. I get one checked bag and though I could pay for another, I really don’t want to find myself struggling through Reykjavik and onto various busses with more luggage than I can really handle myself. One suitcase, one backpack. Thus begins the task of choosing…
I am going to be working with fleece, raw and processed. I will need a way to spin it (wheel or spindle), hand cards, likely combs, and various small yarn winding tools. Fortunately the Textile Center owns many of these things. I decided not to bring my own wheel because (1) I don’t own a travel wheel or an e-spinner and (2) because I can’t possibly carry everything if I do. The wheel the center owns is a Louet and I fear I will struggle mightily with it since I’m used to the stately and slow-moving Schacht Ladybug. So I have a backup in a couple hand-spindles which I’m very familiar with. For the small amounts I’m spinning, they are likely enough most of the time.
I talked about my preparation at some length on Change the Shed, March 16, 2022 HERE. I also talked about some past artist residencies I’ve had in the United States.
The photo below is of some of the things I am thinking of bringing. The copper pipe loom comes for sure. Additional looms pictured are by sketchlooms.com and the Mirrix Saffron. We’ll see how much room I have before adding those. There is a plastic box of weaving tools including bobbins wrapped with flyline backing for the Fringeless four-selvedge supplemental warps. I have some spinning tools to measure twist, a small niddy noddy, and a couple spindles. There are watercolor kits which will undoubtedly go with a huge pile of journals and watercolor paper I’ll whittle down as my suitcase gets heavier and heavier. Art supplies are apparently hard to come by in Iceland and they’re expensive compared to here, so I want to bring the things I know I’m going to use. The 3-ring binder is a cardboard one with project pages for spinning which I got from Kate Larson (I don’t believe she is selling them right now). I am beginning to doubt there will be room for it however.
I’m headed to the Textile Center in Blonduos, Iceland for an artist residency. Deciding on art supplies is tough when you can’t bring much luggage!
As for clothes and other things, weight and space has meant I can’t take paper books which makes me very sad. I’m packing one novel that I’ll leave there whether or not I finish it and the rest of my reading is going to be via Kindle and books I find along the way. I’m making another journal like I did on my Colorado Trail thru-hike last year which means I’ve sown signatures that will eventually be resewn into a book once filled. And I have a new sketchbook which I will fill along the way, so there are also pencils, pens, and colored pencils in my bag.
Swimming suit (because of the pools!), warm clothes (temps 20-40 degrees F and windy), winter shoes and a coat, gloves, hat, scarf. Layers that are easily washed. And a travel towel. Because a towel is a very useful thing.
In the very important book (at least if you were a nerd growing up in the 80s and 90s), The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams makes it clear that one item is of the utmost importance when you’re a galactic traveler.
“A towel... is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value.... More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost.” What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”
Because I fully intend to soak my bones in the geothermal pools that are scattered across this volcanic island, the practical use for a towel becomes apparent. Will the Icelanders believe I’m one of them if I have a towel with me? Undoubtedly I will be pegged as an American immediately upon setting foot on the island. Do I care? Not really, though I will be a model tourist and will spend most of my time there holed up in the textile center and visiting remote spots far from the normal tourist centers. Though the fact that I’ll also have most of the things on the intergalactic travel list with me (I won’t need gnat spray and my wool layers might count as a space suit), might help.
I’ll be working on a project about Icelandic fleece at the residency. There is a lot of it in the north of Iceland and I intend to play with it in every way I can including making some tapestry yarn out of it.
For you Douglas Adams fans, never forget, the answer is 42.
