Anna’s talk to guild members on Saturday told the story of her weaving life from the year 2000, when aged 30, she and her partner moved to rural Ribiera Sacra in NW Spain, until the present day. “Madness” is how she described this decision, and bold it certainly was… without any weaving skills she set out to revive what was becoming a dying tradition in this sparsely populated, mountainous area in Galicia.
Over the next hour, we saw how Anna developed her weaving practice into a successful business; initially as a weaver dyeing her own yarns, then as a teacher in her rural studio, and on to developing her business as she worked with the big fashion labels. Today she heads up a postgraduate course in Applied Arts at the Massana Art School in Barcelona.
It was Anna’s approach to solving problems by learning new skills as they were required (weaving, dyeing, design, branding and marketing) that was inspirational. She applied herself to fund-raising, seizing opportunities as they arose seeking out local expertise to help her on her journey. After Anna left the call, we continued to discuss design and sources of inspiration for our work, and noted how Anna had used other arts and crafts, such as jewellery makers, along her creative journey. “Food for thought” as one attendee commented to me afterwards.
Visit Anna’s website here.