GEORGE WOOD DOBBY LOOM
The term sample is used in science and weaving. A sample is “a small quantity intending to show what the whole is like” and a “representative part or single item from a larger whole” (sample, 2022, November 20). The loom has a footprint of 2.5 x 2.8m and measures over 2.7m in height. This is a similar footprint to the scanners at CABI and the Crick.
The materiality of the loom itself plays its role in driving practice, the loom creaks and rocks slightly when it is in use and the way I interact with it changes depending on environmental conditions. During hot muggy summers, the loom was difficult and uncomfortable to use. During the cold winter months, it was hard for me to move. I could hear the wood creak and yarn react to the temperature changes caused by central heating.
The loom seems to have a life of its own, it too was creaturely. Its components and my body are sometimes at odds with each other. The wood preferred cool and dry. The yarn prefers the damp. From time to time I would lightly spray the warp with distilled water although this was not to the liking of the steel heddles and iron-cast dobby. The dobby needed cleaning, dusting and oiling, which could have easily stained the yarn. Flows in the body-loom assemblage are not always seamless.
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