NEWS FROM THE ANNUAL ANWG MEMBERS MEETING

At the Conference in Victoria, BC, in June the Association of Northwest Weavers Guilds held a meeting of all the guild representatives. Here are the highlights of that business meeting. Membership count currently is 4074 individuals. That’s up over 500 members from 2014. Challenge grants: 20% of the profits from the Conference goes to guild grants. ANWG has a fund for Conference of about $10,000 that they loan to the sponsoring guild to set up the conference in every odd year. The sponsoring guild earns that amount and more from their conference. The $10,000 is repaid to ANWG. The profit is split with the sponsoring guild. 20% of the profit goes towards those ANWG guild grants. When you attend Conference some of your cost ends up helping guilds with their local programs. The Big News, as always in this meeting, is the next Conference. 2019 is in Prince George, BC. Theme is Confluences. They have 3 rivers in Prince George too. More details in separate article. Election of new board members. Meet your new ANWG board on the website, http://www.northwestweavers.org.
The next meeting of ANWG reps is May 19, 2018, in the Oxford Suites/Jansen Beach, Portland, OR

 

DFA’S CONFERENCE AWARD GOES TO NEW ZEALAND!

ANWG 2017
Last year, our DFA Board responded to a request from the 2017 Conference Committee for donations for various awards for the ANWG Conference Gallery.  We sent funds and earmarked them for an award in the Juried class in the Other category, since DFA embraces all fiber art techniques. Our award
was given in the Books & Woven Paper category. It went to Sandra Brooks, from Wellington, New Zealand, for her piece titled “The Journey.”
Sandra was in Victoria and gave DFA some of the details of her piece. She hand spun the paper, adjusting the thickness as needed for different parts of the piece. (Ask Lois Anderson how to do this.) Most of the textured parts of her book are created with the sumac weave technique. The word THEN is on the front cover and NOW is on the back cover. The book starts with a wide path and not much detail and ends with a narrower path with lots of interest along the way. Handspinning, weaving, tapestry skills and book construction. What a great mix of techniques that many DFAers’ enjoy too!

 

IMPRESSIONS OF THE ANWG CONFERENCE
  • Chris Simonen: At the ANWG conference I went to take Rebecca Mezoff’s “Predicting the Unpredictable – Color in Tapestry”, a 3-day workshop. Fabulous, learned a lot! Just like other ANWG and HGA conferences I have attended, I felt totally immersed and my time well spent. It was especially exciting and interesting to meet and visit with attendees from Winthrop, WA to Wellington, New Zealand!
  • Lois Anderson: I attended the ANWG pre-conference class by Velma Bolyard because the title just called to me: Fiber, Paper, Textile, Book, Spirit. It doesn’t get better than that except for meeting great gals who all had something of great value to share, being on the University of Victoria campus which is beautiful & quiet. I had a chance to see the work of other instructors and go through some pretty awesome vendor booths. We covered so much in my class, it would take me a month to do a little sampler of all that I learned. I loved every minute of it.
  • Sharon Ofsthun: Decided to take on a classes with a subject I had never tried before in weaving. Delightful instructor named Marilyn Moore. Beautiful wire work. Look her up on marilynmooreswired.net to see some samples of her work. Great fun. An ANWAG Conference is more than just classes. Sitting at a meal with 500 people that speak the same language as you is delightful. Sharing ideas and concepts is very inspiring. If you can see you’re way clear to attend Prince George, BC, Canada, 2019 or in Salem, OR, in 2021, I think you would find it worth your time. This was my 4th conference and I have enjoyed all of them.
  • Cheryl Reed: Diane Totten broke my prejudice against synthetic yarns in her 3-day workshop. We used thermoplastic yarns like polyester or acrylic with the natural fibers I love to weave fabric like we did a few summers ago, that woven shibori technique. This time the pull threads created pleats that we steamed. The polyester softened into crimped cloth and when it cooled and the pull threads were removed, we have permanently textured fabric. Literally another dimension. ANWG puts on a modestly-priced conference in our corner of the continent with internationally-known instructors. A
    great way to spark your creative process.

 

CONFLUENCES, ANWG CONFERENCE 2019

Prince George, BC, is hosting the next ANWG conference, June 11-16, 2019. The themes plays off the confluence of rivers around Prince George, and on the confluence of cultures in the area. First Nations, and immigrants from all over the world, most recently Syrian refugees. The colors for this conference are the colors of the aurora borealis, purple, magenta, electric blue, green and yellow.

Prince George is home to about 75-80,000 people. The conference will be held in the Civic Center, the Marriott Hotel and possibly surrounding hotels. There are lots of campgrounds around the city, if you prefer to enjoy their beautiful outdoors. The pre-conference workshops will be 2 days long, followed by the usual 3-day conference.

The keynote speaker is Abby Franquemont of spindle-spinning fame. Go to YouTube to watch Abby sum up her fiber experience in 1 minute in her “Channel Welcome Video.” Her multi-cultural background makes her a perfect speaker for “Confluences.”

Start saving your pennies now. I plan on about $1000 for the full week plus travel expenses. One idea would be for Eastern WA to charter a bus to take us all up there. We could fill the bus as we head north with other ANWG members from the region. Do we have any travel agents in DFA to pull that together?