The citizen. [volume] (Berea, Ky.) 1899-1958, 1916-08-17
THE ART OF WEAVING
BY Maude o. Bowman

ming in prehistoric days. IL Is al
most as old as the Preside itself.
In Greece, nine hundred years Be,
the art must have been as far ad-
yanced a. il was in Europe in the
eighteenth century.
Egyptian hieroglyphics show the
goddess Isis with a shuttle in her
hand and Egyptians may have been
the first 90 make textile fabrics, or
perhaps IL was China, twenty-five
hundred years BIC. All we really
know is that the weaver's art was
borne westward from Egypt and
Asia in the march Of civilization.
Early in the seventeenth century,
the Puritans brought the art to
America. When the Professionals
were driven from France they car
} ried their knowledge of textile art
into the southern part of the new
world, and from Massachusetts, to
South Carolina. The sound of the
wheel and loom was mingled with
psalms of thanksgiving for the right
10 worship God according to the die
tates Of ones conscience.
The women of the old South con-
sidered weaving a most womanly
art. Every plantation had its weav-
ing room and the mistress of the
plantation often trained the slaves TO
spin and weave. Up TO 1885, only
hand weaving was known. Then
science and invention began TO
create machinery that made the
human hand seem awkard and
clumsy. These factories with power,
looms could produce everything
needed for home and dress SO much
cheaper and il became so easy 10
get what was needed that few were
willing to give time and labor for
this home manufacture.
Al first they did not realize what
was being missed in the home in ar
tistic appearance and artistic endea-
Vor, though they did discover very
soon how much less durable the
machine woven fabrics were.
There was a period when the
spinning wheels were put In the
attic and generations grew up with
the idea that II was shame To wear
homemade clothes.
This period did not last very long
however, for that peculiar quality
Of beauty" and its irresistible APP
peal" that will always keep the
hand loom and spinning wheel from
passing into the misty realms of the
obsolete, gradually drew them back
TO wearing homespun and furnish.
ing their homes partly with hand
woven linen.
In the mountains OF Virginia,
Kentucky aud North Carolina, wo-
men are working at wheel and loom
Just as their great-great grand
mothers did Time and Change like
two tired travellers seem To have
paused by the wayside and fallen
asleep and to-day repeat the tale
of century ago.
Sometimes the life Of the low
lands and the life of the highlands
meet aud here comes a renaissance
of the arts of weaving and spinning.
The mountain woman learns the
worth of her work. Old drafts are
brought TO light; old secrets of dye
ing are unearthed and the mountain
coverlet goes forth TO teach the
world that Art is. not something to
be pre-empted by aristocracy."
Thoreau says that the value of a.
thing is determined by the amount
of life that goes into it. II these
mountain weavers valued their
work according to Thoreau's stand
ards, only a queen or millionaire
could possess one Of these coNerlets,
When the drudgery of hoelng the
cotton, picking, carding and spin
ming it is over; when the flax is
hacked and spun; when the sheep
are sheared and the wool spun;
when the roots and herbs are
gathered for dyeing-then the noun
tain woman seats herself at the loom.
Her bodily WEAKNESS falls from her
like a garment. She is no longer
tired drudge, she is an artist who
breathes the diviner air of that re-
gion where the beautiful things are
created.
II an artist or sculptor should
come TO her door, believe he would
greet her as his sister and | think
il the Goddess of Beauty should
come to earth and search for her
most faithful worshiper, she would
not find the object of her search in
any studio OF art gallery, but in a
humble home on some Southern
mountain among the gaunt, haggard
women toiling for two seasons 10