Weaving Belts

My friend and colleague Ramyah Gowrishankar and I were invited to do a residency in summer 2013 at the Interdisciplinary art group SERDE, where we had been already the year before. This time our aim was to explore hand-woven Latvian belts (jostas), which are worn as part of the traditional costumes. During the residency we got to meet weaving experts and learned belt weaving techniques, an opportunity we are very grateful for. We also did an open studio event on e-textiles. The project was supported by SERDE, Kulturkontakt Nord and Aizpute Municipality Council.

Latvia has a rich and active tradition of textile crafts including beautiful woven belts. In the beginning of our residency we stayed in Riga and got to learn about this craft with the help of traditional textile expert Linda Rubena from Latvia's national culture center (LNKC). Linda had helped us already with our eCrowns project, so it was great to reconnect. We got to see an exhibition on traditional Latvian crafts and also traditional costume demonstrations at the famous Song and Dance Festival. An important part of our residency was also learning traditional belt weaving techniques from two local belt weaving masters, Lilija and Laima.

In the old town of Riga we visited Lilija's guild weaving studio, which was filled with looms. Lilija showed us woven belts, explaining how each of them was different from the other in its pattern, style and technique. She also showed us a manuscript of one of her weaving books, where she had collected an impressive collection of Latvian belt patterns, including detailed tutorials. She had drawn with great care instructional pictures of each pattern based on real belts and photographs. When we asked about an ancient weaving technique called card weaving (or tablet weaving) in the book, she kindly offered to teach us how to do it. In the photos above you can see snapshots of the learning process.

After Riga we went to SERDE, which is located in Aizpute. There we met Laima, an extremely kind and helpful professional weaver. First we visited the local weaving studio where Laima usually works. We got to see large looms and were particularly fascinated by an over hundred years old loom, which worked with punch cards. After the visit we got to learn a belt weaving technique, which is called prievite stelles in Latvian, referring to a loom and a small belt. Laima had learned this band or backstrap weaving technique at elementary school in Vidzeme. We were eager to learn this technique, because it could be used for weaving the famous red-white belt called Lielvārde's belt. With Laima we got to try how to set up the loom and how to make a small part of the Lielvārde's belt's intricate pattern.

In addition to the weaving activities, we organized together with SERDE and RIXC, Center for New Media Culture, an open studio event in Riga where people could learn about electronic crafts. We also continued exploring card weaving after returning home. We made a card weaving evening with our textile colleagues in Berlin and I also did some card weaving experiments combining wool, optic fibers and conductive yarn.

See also:

• Photo album of weaving with Lilija
• Photo album of weaving with Laima