Weaving or Spinning Clubs and Guilds

Here find advice on the advantages, and disadvantages, in joining such clubs or guilds -- or societies or whatever they may be called locally.

Now some opinions here may be controversial, but please try to evaluate the following with an objective attitude based upon your own life experiences and observations of human nature.

Comments about organizations like "clubs, guilds, etc." here refer to subjects like weaving or spinning, but they are equally applicable to associations based on watercolour painting, pottery, quilting, embroidery, model airplanes, model railways, and hundreds of other arts, crafts or hobbies.

For brevity, let's mainly use the term "club" from here on -- you know club refers to all the other names.

Why would you want to join an organized club?

Advantages include:

• You are starting out and need help or instruction. This may be the quickest and best route locally if the club offers courses or seminars that are suitable for beginners. Similarly for advanced courses.
• The club may give you access to expensive equipment or resources that you cannot afford on your own. A small used weaving loom or spinning wheel is relatively inexpensive, but large pottery kilns or paved 300 foot runways for radio controlled model airplanes can be pricy.
• Relieving a sense of isolation or loneliness. You want to meet other people with similar interests and share in a craft that you love. Organized clubs may provide an instant supportive group of people, where you will likely make some long term real friends.

While the above are all very valid reasons, and you will likely join a club at some point, consider the following potential problems with some such organizations. And I sincerely hope you do not experience them in your club.

Disadvantages include:

• The origin of the guild system in Europe was primarily to protect the select group of craftsmen from outsiders -- if not a member, you cannot sell your produce. In one city I know, the weaving and spinning guild once had exactly that arrangement with local craft outlets. The words protectionism and monopoly come to mind. The intent was clearly detrimental to the interests of independent spinners and weavers, and to the public who were denied the opportunity to see anyone else's work and judge relative quality on its own merits.
• Any organization that gets larger than about 30 members starts to have internal divisions of interest; squabbles and personality disputes may become common.
• The club may get large enough that a type-A organizer introduces a constitution. Complex bylaws and formal processes follow. Now you need a president and board and elections, and business takes much of the time away from the original club purpose. With luck, this only ruins the board members' fun, as they now get to do all the work in the club as they begin to have trouble getting volunteers. All too often, this starts to ruin everyone else's fun. (Has everyone forgotten that fun was a key reason to be in the club?)

Importance of the Individual -- Inside or Outside a Club

The individual artist/craftperson should strive for steady improvement, largely through old-fashioned practice, practice, practice. This is not a chore if you love what you do. Work should stand on its own merit. A beautiful hand-woven tapestry or watercolour painting should be judged by the creator on the personal satisfaction gained in the doing. If members of the general public offer hard-earned cash to acquire this same lovely art for their living room, all the better.

Do not be discouraged by the negative comments of people who believe "fine" art must be accompanied by pretentious written statements of the artist's philosophy or a string of art degrees or association memberships. Handiwork placed for sale in a mall display rather than a gallery is a perfectly valid objective, and may yield the artist even more retained profit and community recognition.

If you belong to a club that has lost its sense of fun, leave it -- today! Your life is too precious to waste it on unnecessary stress.

The Non-Club Solution

Take the format of an old fashioned quilting bee. Find a few like-minded friends. Yes, in this scenario everyone actually is your friend, or why else would you spend time with them?

Meet occasionally at one another's homes for fun gatherings of show-and-tell, or practicing together, or trying something totally different.

If you need a shared resource, pitch in together and keep it simple and inexpensive.

Need new skills? Hopefully one person has the time and personal resources to take an extension course or seminar. Or someone already possesses the skill, and can then show the others. Buy or rent or borrow a how-to book or video on the new skill, and work through it together.

Don't over-organize or formalize. Experiment and play with techniques. Continue to practice -- you will get better.

In the final analysis, you really only have to satisfy yourself. And please remember always to have fun.