Jackie Sylvester explains how she learned to weave and the significance of the Guild.

Jackie Sylvester explains how she learned to weave and the significance of the Guild.

July 08, 2021

© Kingston Handloom Weavers and Spinners

Shaelagh Cull

Jackie Sylvester

Zoom

The community I lived in, there weren't a lot of opportunities for teenagers to find work. I lived in Hudson, Quebec at the time, which is it's not a rural village, but it's outside the environments of Montreal. So members in the community that are quite close knit, decided to help teenagers find jobs. They were offered the use of the church whole basement, which was quite big and had about seven, one really big long room and seven looms. Anyway, a group of women loaned us seven looms for the summer. And two of them mentored us and taught us to weave. And they even found markets for the items that we made. So that got me started. That was a wonderful experience, because a couple of the other participants also spoke French. So we made a pact we'd speak French in the morning and English in the afternoon, to all improve our language skills. Anyway, that got me into very simple plain weaving and the next summer, I got asked by Design Senior, who, they had a home based studio, and they invited about seven people, she had a fashion background. And in an annex to their house, they had about seven looms. And that actually became my job for the next two summers. So age 15, and 16, I wa s actually weaving for a weaving studio. So that got me firmly entrenched into working with weaving. And then of course, there was a hiatus when, well, during university, I did have one exhibition of weaving that I had done, but after that, life took over. And I got into choosing colors for houses, doing design work, I used to say I did everything that the carpenters didn't. So again, I was still involved in spatial, how to use space and color in particular, has always been one of my passions. So eventually, I, I had actually attended one of the fall sales for the Kingston Guild, and they were doing demonstrations at the sale. And that got me saying, oh, yes, you know, I really need to get back into fiber work again. I think it's mostly that the way it provided this whole way for me to connect with a whole network of other people. It's partly the Guild, and then also the experiences at the conferences that I was encouraged to attend, the way I would be invited that wouldn't I like to, to you know, help with workshops, or put on a workshop and the way it's helped my personal growth that way, because of the support, the support behind it all and the way that if I wanted a way forward, it's helped me go that way but it's introduced me to areas I never would have thought of before as well. So I think really, it's, you know, it's just become a fairly important part of my life that way.