HISTORY OF CRAWFORD WEAVING - GALLERY

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Carol Crawford was born in Boston, MA and moved to Vermont in 1969 to attend Middlebury College. At Middlebury, she studied dance and theatre, but after the Kent State shootings she became caught up in the zeitgeist of counter culture. Along with some friends, they found an empty farm and created an intentional community that came to be known as the Snake Mountain commune. It was here that she started weaving in 1971 on an old post-and-beam loom she found in the attic. Using a book to guide her, she jerry-rigged the loom and worked on her first warp with the balls of yarn she kept in canning jars spread around her. Improbably, it worked. Weaving became part of her life, although she taught dance to make a living. She left Snake Mountain and moved north to Bakersfield, VT to build her current home and weaving studio. Today, Crawford continues to teach herself new techniques in weaving, now using a 16-harness loom that allows her to design complicated twill patterns. 

Excerpt on the history of Crawford Weaving provided by the Vermont Folklife Museum and the Bennington Museum Exhibition on Vermont Craft Masters.