RECAP:
Weaving Workshop Weekend

October 4-6, 2024

Chicago, IL

Weaving Workshop Weekend (WWW) acted as a culminating celebration of LMRM’s first year of public programming. Since relaunching, LMRM has hosted several weaving workshops, started multiple collaborative projects with artists, and supported over 15 weavers looking for continued independent access to a TC2 loom. 

Over 3 days, WWW attracted almost 200 attendees for a condensed series of artist lectures, topical workshops, a book release, a group exhibition, and open studio tours of various textile-related community resources in the city. WWW’s programs showcased the experimental practices of 4 featured artists whose works explore a variety of themes and weaving techniques. This weekend served as LMRM's final act for 2024 public events, as well as a gesture of gratitude for our developing relationships within the larger community of digital weaving.

Check out our recap below!

Friday
October 4

6 - 9 pm

Sample Path Opening Reception

Open Shed, 2003 West Fulton Street Studio 215, Chicago IL 60612

LMRM is grateful to Cathryn Amidei, Danielle Andress, Jovencio de la Paz, and Poppy DeltaDawn, who were our featured artists of WWW 2024. On Friday night, we celebrated with an opening reception for Sample Path, a group exhibition highlighting the works of each artist.

With artists traveling in from various cities, it was a wonderful evening for old friends to reconnect in Chicago, meet new ones, and for everyone to kickoff a whirlwind weekend of programs together.

Photos: Felton Edward Kizer

Saturday
October 5

9 am - 1 pm

Artist Lectures

Open Shed, 2003 West Fulton Street Studio 215, Chicago IL 60612

We shared an incredible morning of thoughtful exchange and inquiry during back-to-back artist lectures led by Cathryn Amidei, Danielle Andress, Poppy DeltaDawn, and Jovencio de la Paz.

Between a mix of experimental writing and academic research, each of them presented on topics related to their digital weaving practice. The lecturers guided us through vibrant conversations about access to tools, translation of ideas and knowledge, concerns around complicated histories, and the possibilities open to us as contemporary makers. The air was mixed with gratitude and awe as each lecture overlapped with the next, tying disparate topics into a continuous thread of discourse.

The artist lectures were a hybrid format between in-person and virtual attendees. We were joined by almost 75 listeners who traveled across or logged on from all over Chicago, the US (21 different states!), Canada, the UK, and Norway.

To fuel this experience, we served pastries by Cadinho Bakery and coffee by Monday Coffee.

Technological memory is more archival, more reliable, more efficient than human memory. It does not forget easily, but it does not function without the aid of human memory. It is bound to us in collaboration. How strange that, as a collaboration of intelligences, what the loom forgets, we and the cloth must remember.
— Jovencio de la Paz
When we stand at the loom and open the shed, we become part of an equation that begins with ourselves. The shed is formed like that greater-than [>] symbol; opening toward all possibilities.
— Cathryn Amidei
Textiles and cloth don’t simply contain physical records of the way in which they were made. They’re manifestations of those movements. All weaving is made through repetitive gestures and, essentially, stories. We imprint our emotions and histories on them.
— Poppy DeltaDawn
Today’s shifting digital frontier of virtual spaces is restructuring our relationship with ourselves, each other. Every TC2 weaver moves back and forth between the physical world and the mediated one. I am interested in the slippage, the things lost in translation, and the inevitable incongruence that are unique to this weaving process.
— Danielle Andress

Together, we spent the morning appraising the future of this medium and tool. There was a persistent through line that though knowledge exists in our minds, physical objects, math, and more, it is always activated through the tension of culture, and in communion with each other. These brilliant speakers ignited a passion that we all indisputably share as weavers, artists, scholars, and educators.

Saturday
October 5

3 - 6 pm

Workshop 1: The Warp is the Weft: Design Through Doing

LMRM, 2233 South Throop Street Studio 211C, Chicago IL 60608

In The Warp is the Weft: Design Through Doing, Poppy DeltaDawn expanded upon the design traditions of Mise-en-Carte, or the point paper plan that 18th century weavers of Lyon worked from to manufacture silk. Using the digital canvas, ratios, and mathematics, Poppy led attendees in a demonstration of how she intuitively designs with both warp and weft in mind. Poppy emphasized her approach to “painting with pixels,” stretching our minds as she arranged layers of thread interlacements in Photoshop that responded to the tricolor warp LMRM installed for the season.

Paired with the release of her first publication with LMRM, Poppy’s in-person workshop also served as an appetizer for the design methodologies she expands upon in Ratio. Intermingled with personal essays, historical accounts, and instructional manuals for digital loom file-design, Ratio is both a love letter to artists working on the TC2 digital jacquard loom, as well as to the long lineage of weaving and loom technology.

We are honored and thrilled to usher this book into the world.

Purchase your copy here!

There are many ways to complete the same tasks, in Photoshop, in weaving, and in life. The combination of varying components in your weaving come together to defy what you thought you knew.
— Poppy DeltaDawn
Photos: Felton Edward Kizer

Sunday
October 6

9 am - 12 pm

Workshop 2: Introduction to Coding for Weavers

LMRM, 2233 South Throop Street Studio 211C, Chicago IL 60608

In Introduction to Coding for Weavers, Jovencio de la Paz demonstrated a workflow that they often employ within their own weaving practice.

Jovencio encouraged an attitude of play and improvisation as they prompted ChatGPT to write more specific code for users to drop into Processing, a software sketchbook that offers different visualizations of coding instructions, and then filled the graphics with weave structures in Photoshop. They worked with attendees to navigate their curiosities at LMRM’s TC2 loom, responding to individual requests and queries around double cloth and waffle weave structures.

The morning had an air of quiet excitement as Jovencio deftly cleared a path forward for attendees to think through the loom beyond photographic images.

Let’s not think about the weaving as the end product, but another node in the process of exploring an idea.
— Jovencio de la Paz
Photos: Felton Edward Kizer

25% off

25% off

LMRM is grateful to Considered Cloth for sponsoring the yarn material for WWW Workshops.

Considered Cloth offers a curated selection of unique yarns for weavers including hard-to-find silk, linen, paper, hemp, and blended yarns such as stainless steel and silk. LMRM's workshop participants and WWW attendees are eligible for a 25% discount on all yarns sold by Considered Cloth. For weavers who are planning future weaving sessions at LMRM, email info@considered-cloth.com for special orders at wholesale prices.

Sunday
October 6

1 - 4 pm

LMRM Open Studio Hours  

LMRM, 2233 South Throop Street Studio 211C, Chicago IL 60608

Our doors were open for an afternoon of tours around our weaving studio and demonstration of our loom equipment. We talked about Ratio, our first ever LMRM publication, and basked in the final hours of a vibrant inaugural Weaving Workshop Weekend.

We were happy to welcome a guided CXW tour led by Stoodio. As one of two places in the USA to offer public access to a TC2 digital jacquard loom, we love sharing about how cool our big loom is. One of our favorite moments to witness will always be the first sound of awe (silence) when our loom turns on and huffs as it lifts its threads. The perfect cocktail of magic and human ingenuity!

LMRM was also a partner on Chicago Exhibition Weekend 2024 (CXW), which was presented by Gertie and EXPO Chicago. CXW 2024 is an annual weekend spotlighting Chicago’s vibrant cultural landscape and artistic spirit for locals and visitors alike.

Open Studios Across Seven Neighborhoods in Chicago

In addition to our open studio hours, we also coordinated with other textile-based friends and organizations across the city to open their doors for visitors as well. Make sure you have all these folks on your radar from now on!

4 LECTURES
3 DAYS
2 WORKSHOPS
1 EXHIBITION

LMRM is grateful to everyone who joined us for our inaugural Weaving Workshop Weekend. We are guided by your collective curiosities, which in turn helps shape the space LMRM inhabits in the larger arts ecosystem. These events are only as special as the people who show up make them, so thank you all for joining us, or rooting for us if you could not make it.

Your enthusiasm fuels what’s next! 

This program is partially supported by a grant from the Breakout Foundation's Chicago Community Fund Fellowship, in partnership with Gertie. CCF supports individuals and organizations dedicated to driving positive change, fostering connections, and creating lasting impact in Chicago.

We also thank our WWW volunteers, for whom this endeavor would have been an impossible feat without: 
Louisa Zheng, Thương Hoài Trần, Jun Yu Tan, Wendy Lu 

Our partners