I have been interested in histories of weavers, both fictional and real, and the conditions they lived and worked, many times in solitude and hardship. The writer George Elliot in the novel Silas Marner describes the life and setting of Silas. Elliot also addresses Silas Marners quest for redemption and peace, ultimately succeding in his transformation not from weaving or labor but from other events.
Also, Van Gogh found and documented the lives of weavers and their living condtions in Belgium and Nothern France in1879. There he had passed through villages of weavers and was deeply impressed by what he saw as the craftmen’s almost meditative aura, not focusing on the weavers actual circumstances. In Nuenen, the Netherlands he encountered that the weavers were actually hardworking poor and not figures of dreaminess. What Van Gogh found there was “often something agitated and restless” about them and the grim reality of their lives. The romantic vision of weavers and the associations of solitude, redemption and peace through weaving is one that I have questioned and wondered way such a connection exits at all.
Having discovered the history of weaving and craft at Eastern State for me it is an interesting contrast to the Hambidge cummunity of weavers and Hanbidge Artist Residency in the Georgia mountains where I have been given time and funding to write this proposal. The founder Mary Hambidge, in the 1920’s founded a collective of weavers to produce her work. The work and philosophy of Mary Hambidge has a connection to the early prison reformers, as they both have addressed the need to be, or work in solitude.
The second room is a contrast to the chaos and explosion of color in the opposite room by using grey, black and white striped textiles. The textiles will be striped to recall the use of striped fabric on inmates. Also, the second room utilizes the textiles Blind Vision, made with cut outs or openings that serve as reminders of the spaces that food would be passed and feeding aperatures, as well as, the openings for eyes of the hoods worn by new prisoners. In each installation additional sections of the textile will be attached to the back and front of the looms causing the expansion of textile in the cell and making the loom unable to function, as well as, a section either hanging in space or placed on a bed frame.
The textiles are made from non toxic plastic tape, vinyl coated polyester, recycled, polyester and retro reflective materials that are strong, mildew and uv resisitant. The vinyl coated yarn is used in outdoor flooring and furniture and is made in Alabama at one of the last large scale textle operations. The fact that the yarns and materials are used in everday objects connects them to the fabrics woven at ESP, to the very nature of labor and craft that was performed everyday in the cells. Retro reflective yarn is used for safety related items, but is also used in uniforms on comtemporary inmates and guards. Given the hardy nature of the materials the the pieces will require little maintenance 
