Elaine Horemans on Ontario Handspinning Seminar

Elaine Horemans on Ontario Handspinning Seminar

Jung-Ah Kim

Elaine Horemans

Zoom

Ontario Handspinning Seminar is an event that is run by a group called the Ontario Handspinning Seminar that is not specifically Kingston oriented. It's a provincial organization. And they hold this spinning seminar, which is actually like a conference every year annually. And they move it around into two different areas of the province every year or every other year. But the first year I joined the guild, or the second year, I guess it was in Kingston. And I was encouraged to attend because they have wonderful speakers and opportunities for you to go and actually sit and take a lesson in the room with some expert on whatever the subject is from, you know, different types of fiber or different skills that you need to learn or even something completely different, like embroidery or whatever. So it's really interesting, it involves interesting information that is good for any level of spinner. And so as a new beginner at that time, I was really encouraged to go and I wanted to learn more, I was quite eager to learn more. And if it weren't for the hand spinning seminar, I actually would have been limited in the opportunities that I would have had to learn things. So I really owe a lot for my personal learning and growth to being able to go to the seminar. So I attended every year, often I went with someone we shared driving, and we were roommates for the weekend, which also made it quite social. And then after a few years, I felt that I really needed to learn more about spinning. So I was encouraged by one of our very knowledgeable members to take the Ontario Handspinning Certificate Course, which is held in Halliburton, the Fleming college or College of the Arts in Halliburton every summer, it's held for a week in August, and the program lasts for six years. So you're committed to going for this week in August for six consecutive years. And you'd think that there wouldn't be enough material. But oh my goodness, there's more than enough material. However, having been through that program, I graduated 2020. So last year, I guess, having done that six year program, it's opened up all kinds of areas for me to explore further, it really improved my spinning ability, and has made me much more confident in being able to create things but also in being able to advise people right and to teach. It was around that time I think when I was in the fifth year of that or so by the Ontario Spinning Seminar, to organize the Spinning Seminar because it was to come back to Kingston that year, for two years in a row. And so I agreed to do that job. And it's quite a big job. It's organizing a conference basically. So again, it's very similar to the Sheep to Shawl, but to a much greater extent. You have to organize, I think we had 12 or 13 different presenters with content and we had to have keynote speaker, you had to book a venue, we had to arrange meals and hotel rooms availability, there's quite a lot to it. At that time, our new facility here at the Tett was just available. And we had constructed a dye station, which was quite unusual for a guild to have the opportunity to use a dye station of their own. So we wanted to showcase that and one of the presenters was actually presenting a dye unit and we bussed people from the hotel to our dye station to do the workshop over that day and back again. So they had an opportunity to actually get some of the seminar participants into our unique dye studio. So that was a real wonderful opportunity. I enjoyed it very much. And those activities are besides the great learning opportunities, which I really love. They're very social and you get to make quite good friends that you see them only once a year and you get quite friendly with them and it's nice to be able to share what you've done over the past year and have opportunities to spin together. I think all spinners enjoy the social aspect of it.