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Passing it on

Contributed by: Cozy Swickard on 10/4/2006

"The spark passed directly to me from my grandmother, " says weaver, teacher and Colorado native, Robin Wilton. "She taught me how to knit, crochet and do other crafts when I was just a little girl. Like my grandmother, if my hands aren't busy with some sort of fiber project, I'm just not going to feel right - even to this day."

Wilton, a Highlands Ranch resident, is the business manager for the Douglas County Women's Crisis and Family Outreach Center. "It's something I just have to pass along as it was passed along to me," she said.

With encouragement from her grandmother and her weaving teacher at Denver East High School in an Arts and Crafts class (yes, there WAS macramé involved), Wilton ultimately enrolled in CSU's Fiber Studies department because of her love of weaving. It's a love Wilton wants to pass along so every year at a few, select Colorado locations, you'll find Robin Wilton with a bunch of children setting off sparks.

For15 years, for example, Wilton has managed the Children's Tent at the Estes Park Wool Market. Saturday and Sunday provide two whole days of hands-on weaving, spinning and rope-making demonstrations. Hundreds of children visit the Children's Tent and many bring their parents along for one-on-one direct experience with the fiber arts and crafts - for many families it's an annual Father's Day outing. "There are 30 to 40 volunteers from the Front Range weaving guilds helping out in the tent," says Wilton, "many of whom say that sharing this hands-on learning environment with kids is something they look forward to doing all year long. It's really fun to see the kids make the connection with the whole process from seeing the animals in the barns to making yarn and turning that into cloth. It's a lot of fun for the artists and for the kids, absolutely!"

Another venue for the fiber-spark-transfer is Labor Day weekend's Taste of Colorado at the Civic Center in downtown Denver. Wilton sets up her loom in the artisan area and demonstrates her work to passersby and those interested in learning more about making cloth. "Unlike the Estes Park Wool Market which is a pretty pre-selected, fiber loving crowd," says Wilton, "The Taste of Colorado presents a broader audience. It's surprising how many people are interested in knowing more about weaving fundamentals once they see the loom and watch the shuttle flying back and forth."

Wilton also demonstrates weaving at the Mansion every year during Highlands Ranch Days held on the second weekend in September. "It's another hands-on opportunity for kids, especially, to feel what it's like to sit at the floor loom or touch the warp. So few people today understand how cloth is made, it's just so great to show them something everybody used to know but today, very few do."

Funding shortages have limited Wilton's access to public schools where she used to offer weaving demonstrations at the rate of about 1 per week throughout the school year across the entire Denver area. "It was great," says Wilton, "to spend an hour with a class of 30 kids or so, talking about the cloth-making process from sheep-to-shawl. The kids could touch the fleece from the sheep, see how to twist fibers in the spinning process to make yarn and sit at my loom to learn how the yarn eventually was woven into cloth. We also had a great game I call the Living Loom; kids hold ends of 'fibers' which are passed over and under each other to represent the warp and weft of woven cloth. The kids look at their jeans and their backpacks - anything made of cloth - in whole new ways," she says. "It's so much fun to ignite their curiosity about everyday things!"

In addition to her everyday schedule at the Women's Crisis and Family Outreach Center, Wilton writes regularly for Alpaca Magazine and is working on a book about Inkle weaving. She's the mother of three college students. How many ways can she ignite that spark of love for fiber arts? Any place with a bunch of kids and room for a loom, Robin Wilton will be there with busy hands, some fiber and that indescribable urge to make sparks fly!

Robin Wilton is a member of three Front Range weaving guilds. For information about her demonstration schedule, e-mail her at weavinglady@aol.com. Her work can be seen at the Rocky Mountain Weavers Guild Annual Sale at the Englewood Civic Center Oct. 25 to 28. For more information, visit www.rmweavers.org.


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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Cozy Swickard

Castle Rock , CO

Cozy Swickard has posted 14 stories and 0 comments since joining on 9/21/2006. Cozy Swickard 's average story rating is 5.
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