Heart, Head, and Hands: Life as a Master Weaver
Kate Smith Shares Her Story for SPI’s Handwerks
Traditional weaver and textile preservationist Kate Smith shared her story with SPI as part of our new Handwerks project. Lying somewhere in the space where art and craft become entwined with history and function, fiber arts, in all of their manifestations, are making a comeback, particularly with young people who wish to connect more fully with the natural world. For some, technology has caused too great of a disconnect.
About Kate:
After completing her undergraduate degree, a twist of fate led Kate to Marshfield, Vermont, where she met a man by the name of Norman Kennedy and discovered the Marshfield School of Weaving. It was an intro that changed her life forever. As she related at our first unrecorded meeting, she unwittingly walked into a world that turned her life upside down. “There were all these beautiful wooden looms and all this gorgeous yarn. I could hear the thumping of the looms and smell the lanolin and linseed oil - and I was overcome. And that was the beginning.” A passion for working with historic equipment and weaving traditional textiles was ignited.
For the better part of her professional life, Kate was involved with the Marshfield School - first as an apprentice, then as a teacher, and until recently as head of school. In addition to her involvement there, Kate founded Eaton Hill Textile Works—a textile studio dedicated to recreating historic textiles using 200-year-old New England-made hand looms. While there, she spent ten years researching and fine-tuning techniques to emboss and finish fabrics, work that was not being done anywhere else on a small scale. Just this past year, Kate opened the doors to a new venture, The Weaver’s Croft, where students come to spend extended periods of time in independent study or in weekend workshops. There is also the opportunity for students to collaborate with preservation timber framers to learn about building traditional hand looms and other weaving equipment.
For her Handwerks talk, Kate shared stories about her life as a traditional weaver and teacher and what it means to her to have created a life of simplicity, tradition, and authenticity in the tech-driven 21st century.
About SPI
Our Mission: Story Preservation Initiative believes in the transformative power of story to connect people around our common humanity and create a better future.
Our Work: We are a leading producer and online distributor of original, content-rich audio-based narratives for K-12 students. SPI stories are the raw materials of history, roadmaps to scientific discovery, and windows to the mind of artists and skilled tradesmen and women.
What We Achieve: SPI brings listeners into personal contact with extraordinary people whose stories engage their hearts and minds, imparting content knowledge and fostering curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking as they open doors to possible career paths in professions associated with the arts, sciences, humanities, and skilled trades.
SPI was founded in 2010. We are fully and proudly open-source.
SPI produces original, primary source recordings of extraordinary people who share their knowledge and experience with young people to educate, inspire, and make learning meaningful and real-world relevant.