Warp, weft and hoof
Profile:
Christine Stanley
by Jane Ledwell
In her barn on the Dixon Road, Christine Stanley is brushing her new donkey, Malachi. He’s company for the donkey her grown children got for her last birthday, and he joins fellow donkey Zebediah, dogs, cats, goats, sheep, guinea pigs, and angora rabbits. Malachi’s short dun hair is soft after the brushing, but donkeys are for company, not for fibre for Christine’s intricate weaving.
After growing up in a military family that moved from city to city, Christine chose a settled “hermit’s life” in the country, with family, farm, books, and a weaving business connected to all three.
“I wanted to go into costume design,” Christine recalls, “but then the craft school in Fredericton [NB] hired an Estonian master weaver…. I thought if I could weave first, I could always do costume design later.”
While studying her craft, she met her husband, potter Malcolm Stanley, and together they decided to live and work in the Maritimes. They settled on PEI.
“I had never been to PEI, but it seemed everyone had a horse in the backyard,” Christine says. “I had no experience with animals. But at that time, there were farm courses to help people with small farms again, because they didn’t want to lose them from the Island. The Small Farm Rep from the Department of Agriculture would come door to door!”
Times change, and weaving styles with them. Christine says, “Back then, weaving was more ‘natural’—a lot of weaving was a bit on the ‘beige’ side, to be kind. Now it’s very fine, with silks and cashmeres.”
She adds, “It’s okay with me if I have to change my weaving so I can continue to weave. I want this to be my job.”
Keeping weaving saleable means keeping up with trends. “As I love my organic living, I do have an addiction to Fashion TV,” Christine laughs. “I love Valentino. Not that I wear clothes like that—I’m still a Frenchie’s girl.”
Though she’s not “computer savvy,” it’s through the Internet that Christine finds the best suppliers of prized alpaca, merino, and blue-faced Leicester fleeces: “I couldn’t get these fleeces 20 years ago, but now I e-mail and say, ‘Have you sheared your sheep yet? Remember to keep me five fleeces.’”
Minimills, Island-based specialty spinners, are a boon for Christine, who is “a weaver first and a spinner second.”
“If I spun it all myself,” she says, “ people couldn’t afford it”—though her secret indulgence is reading books while she spins.
Like love of animals, love of literature feeds her fibre artistry. She reads about 50 books a year, many connected to history and adventure. “Last year, I created a series of shawls based on Moby Dick, in all these shades of red and blue, thinking of a soliloquy by Ahab.”
What sounds idyllic is hard work. Christine spins, dyes, and keeps four looms active. “The craftsman’s life is great,” she says, “But I have a quota I fill every day…. You have to be very business-minded, and it’s long hours. You can’t charge an arm and a leg for a scarf just because it took you three days to weave it.
“I’m lucky because we have a retail shop [Stanley Pottery and Weaving] to sell to. I can’t afford to lose 40 to 50 percent to a retail shop. I’m lucky to have a potter, too,” she says.
“I have only started keeping my weaving in the last few years. I had no samples of anything I did. Everything I do now, I do one extra and keep it—and it’s accumulating quickly! I don’t think I even have room for another rug or runner. The house is at capacity now.
“I try to produce a lot, because I want to make a living,” Christine says. “It’s two years now since my children all left home, and I’m weaving all the time. I don’t think I have to work next summer—I think I’ve built up enough stock. That’s great, because I want to spend time with my donkeys,” she says. No complaints from Malachi.