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Weaving time

"Shelter" (30x22, mixed media on handmade paper) was inspired by a tiny black-and-white photograph Karen Tamminga-Paton noticed in a newspaper many years ago, of two Muslim women embarking on an 800 kilometre pilgrimage to Mecca. It was their last act of their faith and they were saying goodbye to each other. Karen was moved by the story and wanted to sit with what drives us to go on pilgrimage. In the background is a painting of the Crowsnest Mountain in Alberta.

Mary spins and the thread twists
at just the right moment.
The tension tight, she winds it 
on the shaft and then smoothly
presses another bit of wool, 
pinches the thread, sees it wind into true.

She listens as the stories 
of women, of family, weave together.
Rachel sitting on the idols 
and the men slinking away. 
The women snicker, then tell 
of Tamar, how she, too, was clever, 
better yet, she didn’t die in the end.

A woman alone and pregnant—
Mary shivers at the thought
of all those eyes, watching,
but her fingers are steady with the thread.

Mary’s arm arcs upward 
in a fluid curve, a shadow swings
downward, the two half arcs
meet in her middle.

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