TheImaginariumForge, is the ETSY Shop BLOG of TheDancingGoats…

Http://TheDancingGoats.com

Heritage Craft First Principles: A series of video lessons on topics that underlie the traditional crafts...

Skills are like an onion & layers are built upon, one after another

Short Lessons are free on our You Tube Channel: TheDancingGoats!

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDancingGoats

All Photography is Copyright TheDancingGoats...

The Goats that Dance and Start to Fly...

 

Among First Principles, Knots are the most basic skill. Keep them simple, tie them correctly and use them in the right places for the task & they will serve you well...

12th Night Approaches and the Days Begin to Lengthen...

TheImaginariumForge, is the ETSY Shop BLOG of TheDancingGoats…

Http://TheDancingGoats.com

Late Autumn Slumber & Pre Solstice Clockwork Shadows, my new Time Lapse on our You Tube Channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDancingGoats

All Photography is Copyright TheDancingGoats...

 

Things that are very fast and very slow...are fascinating. The apparent motion of time is just the movement of a machine and the original clockwork was the Sky, Gaia, Sol, Luna & the Wanderers.

Chimney Rock from the Observation Kiva

 

Shadows...Angles...The Sun's path across a window...Like the great gnomon at the Chimney Rock Archeological Site...Once in 19 years it serves as a marker against the night sky and frames the Moonrise...

 

Water is 1000 feet away, straight down...

 The great Chacoan watchtower and signaling station for monitoring the sky's motion. Observe...Repeat...

 

Just like the 'Beacon of Gondor', Chimney rock was a light tower for signaling Chaco Prime of the once in 19 years major standstill of the moon...In the 3rd photo, right in the middle of the horizon is the direction of Chaco Canyon...6700+ observations required just to catch the major standstill a second time...

 

Chimney Rock: A deeply mysterious and deeply sacred place...Where the Clockwork of the Sky, like a shadow on a window could predict events and perhaps be understood...

 

One of the Great Mysteries in North America...

Music and Making:

Another Interlude from:

Http://thedancinggoats.com

Use the poets name: 'Frost', for a special discount through the holidays on our ETSY site: http://www.etsy.com/people/TheDancingGoats

 

Making things for sale for our craft and fiber festivals is always a challenge.

I never cut corners or hasten a process for the sake of production…

A new Time Lapse Video is up on You Tube on our channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDancingGoats

Making Whorls is the 1st step in the assembly of the various fiber tools we offer...

 

The Pressure Chuck...

 

There are Journey Person practices though, that take advantage of ‘The Economy of Motion’...The ‘Pressure Chuck’ is one innovation in Turning that elevates productivity in an amazing way…

A very simple cone with a very flat end surface acts as the driver & allows a ‘plate’ to be turned like a spindle with no waste. The Lathe is a 1946 Atlas Screw Making Engine...

 

A Drop Spindle Whorl

 

The Music Track in the video is John Serrie and is an example of the ethereal landscapes that aid a Maker's concentration.

Music and Making:

An Interlude from:

Http://thedancinggoats.com

 

Use the poets name: 'Frost', for a special discount through the holidays on our ETSY site: http://www.etsy.com/people/TheDancingGoats

 

Almost everyone that comes through our studios always and dependably will ask, “What are you listening to”?

Autumn Slumber in 1000NM IR: A perfect companion to an Ambient Groove

 Making is a transcendent experience to me and the “Maker Zone”, where hours pass by in the blink of an eye, are the “raison d'etre” or “Reason to be”…

 Leonardo wrote about it, as did Durer…The mystical landscape of the mind where certain triggers alter the very flow of time…

Source of a thousand woodcarvings...

Music, especially the more ethereal landscapes of the Space and Techno-Tribal artists are one of the tools that comprise enrty to “The Maker Zone”…

The woven flight of the lampyridae weave an Ambient Symphony of light

 Select Ambient Artists for Makers include:

John Serrie….Premiere Space Music Artist: http://www.thousandstar.com/index2.html

try, Planetary Chronicles 1 and 2

Steve Roach…Tribal Ambient Projekt Master: http://www.steveroach.com/

try, Western Spaces or Kiva, recorded with Hopi Elders…

Anything from the Spotted Peccary Label: http://spottedpeccary.com/

try, When Thunder Sleeps…

All of the Between Interval discs are very unusual ambient journeys… http://spottedpeccary.com/artists/between-interval/

Coyote Oldman was way ahead of the Ambient curve  http://coyoteoldman.com/collections/music

try Thunder Chord or Tear of the Moon…

Ambient Light is a Similar Wavelength

 

Et in Arcadia ego

Follow Autumn's Red Lanterns

 

 A new video illustrating the use of the Russian spindle is up on You Tube.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDancingGoats
 

The compromise Russians that I make have been very popular and are used
by folks that make long trips on busses and trains. The spindles are very compact and portable and by practice, all of the action stays close to your personal space.

An Ancient Tool Form

 As a veteran festival craftsman, my inspiration & muse is derived from Tolkien’s vision of rural England during Victorian times and his nostalgia for fabled lost Arcadia…

 My heirloom items are handmade, recycled, rescued, repurposed & lovingly crafted and finished. A Maker knows that Arcadia is not lost...

Arcadia Reclaimed

 You Tube, certainly opens up a new world for the traditional crafts & my videos are a way of giving back some of the things I have learned. A convergent synthesis seems to be evolving on the craft spaces within You Tube…and the Maker community is sharing an ever rising instructional set of tools for Journeyperson Makers and those that dream of becoming…

 Through You Tube, Navajo craftsperson, Clara Sherman helped me learn the principles of the use and to deduce the construction of this wonderful form of spinning wheel. Though her hands are now still, her voice and gentle native wisdom still speaks…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Sherman &
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_p7OIghMVw

Recently, Greasemoth's wonderful & amazing time lapse of her use of the Navajo Spindle added to the ability to understand how to utilize this fascinating wheel type…The thing I find fascinating about the time lapses, hers, mine and others, are the long cycle cadences of motion that are not apparent in real time. Good job Coral!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN0lf3Tdss8

Who says that we cannot reach the Shire or Fabled Arcadia? That it is not real…Not me, not Coral & certainly not Clara who never left…

Aldo Loved the Autumn...

The Imaginarium Forge is the ETSY Shop BLOG of The Dancing Goats:

New Videos on YouTube: Learning to Draft & Use of the Nostepinne

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDancingGoats

 Our Folk Ways Retreat will feature intensive hands on Northern Folk School style instruction with a varied palette of instructors.

TheDancingGoats At the Waterloo Sheep Festival

At the All Missouri Spin In

Free instructional videos on our YouTube channel are designed as an example of our classes and to help with the beginning 'First Principles’ of various craft practices…Often the only barrier to becoming a Maker: Learning the Basics…That's 1st Principles

The Drop Spindle Dance

 Become a Maker, with The Dancing Goats traditional Folk Ways Tools & Instruction.

Russian Spindles with Fiber

 The first two lessons are posted on YouTube…The first of many…

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDancingGoats

 Learning to Draft: Drafting Fiber is a core First Principle in Spinning of all types…

Use of the Nostepinne: A cool and ancient tool, the Nostepinne makes Center pull balls of yarn…Any old smooth stick with parallel sides will do, but I like for a tool to have style & be useful at the same time…

http://www.etsy.com/people/TheDancingGoats

Long John Silver's Nostepinne for Craft Yarns

 

TheDancingGoats.com at the Chautauqua Festival at Chillicothe MO…September 8 & 9, 2012

This year there was a Sheep to Shawl Demonstration in the Tradional Artisans Compound...From shorn fiber to finished Shawl in 2 days of effort by dedicated fiber artisans.

 

Loom and Swawl:

 

The Weaver works his ancient magic…

 

The spun fleece is placed on a bobbin in a shuttle on the loom and the weaver works an amazing pattern into the cloth…

 

A lovely Shawl...

 

From the Imaginarium Forge:
There was a time, when every piece of fabric was hand spun…That time will come again…
Every sail on every ship…Every garment…The tents that kept out the night, hand spun all.
The spindle in all its forms is one of the oldest tools. It will probably be with us at the end of all things.
When, every sail on every ship…Every garment…The tents that keep out the night, will be once again, hand spun all.