Dear Friends

I last wrote in Autumn just as I was beginning my month of weaving in my new studio and had launched my Etsy shop, Painted Loom Studios. The month was wonderful. It was a delight to have such a single creative focus, I could feel old pathways in my mind opening up; becoming much more sensitive to the colours, shapes and the rhythms of the world around me. I wove lots of samples seeding ideas and research for future projects. It was during that time that a different vision for my life was starting to unfold; to move back to my hometown, set up a studio practice and focus on painting and weaving full time. I was so sad to leave Tiratanaloka Retreat Centre, where I lived and worked with dear friends in Spiritual community, but something else was calling, so I took the leap…

Bathing in Pink Orange Red light

We’re renting a small two bed flat which looks out over the Solent in my hometown. The sea is like an extension of our home, it brings movement, light and spaciousness into our lounge and converted home art studio. I’ve continued to explore the theme of colour, contrasting rich pure hues with dull muted tones. Working intuitively I layer thick paint followed by light washes and watch the colours move like the changing tides. I’ve found the transition from living with friends in spiritual community much more challenging than I thought, at times I’ve felt quite lost and alone even though I’ve been supported by loving friends and family. Out of the difficulty I developed a new ritual of going down to the beach each evening to watch the sun set into the sea, collecting shells, watching the birds, listening to the water. This week I literally bathed in the orange, pink, red light as I took a sunset swim, chanting the Amitabha mantra, the Buddha of the West, of infinite light and compassion.

I’ve finished these pieces and have them ready to sell as originals and limited edition signed prints. I’m so pleased with the print quality and I’m glad to be able to have some lower priced items on my Etsy shop Painted Loom Studios. You can check out the pieces here and there’s discounts for buying multiples as I think they look best together! I’ve also made some very sweet hand woven bookmarks, wall hangings and cards inspired by the same colour theme which I’ll launch soon. It’s been challenging and satisfying to make my first “collection”. Some close ups below…

Until next time.

With much love,

Garavavati

xx

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Hello dear friends

I hope you are all well and enjoying the change of season as Autumn comes to slowly dismantle Summer.

I am writing from the Isle of Wight on a beautifully grey day. I arrived here last week to begin a self-made art residency at my aunt and uncle’s house in Gurnard. I was recently gifted a loom and so one of the spare rooms has been re-named The Loom Room and here I will weave for a month.

I last wrote to you over a year ago, just as I was moving to Tiratanaloka retreat centre where we live as a spiritual community and run retreats for women who are training to get ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order. It continues to be a rich and meaningful time living and working there and I am not often seen without needle, thread and fabric, as I have been finishing off many of the things that I wove in my year of studying textile weaving at Sätergläntan craft school.

Now that all the pieces are finished, I’m so pleased to be sharing them with you and launching my new Etsy shop Painted Loom Studios where you can buy some of the things that I have woven and in some cases hand spun or naturally dyed. I had a lot of fun with my dear friend Akasajoti, who generously took all the beautiful photos and videos. One of my favourite things is to make pieces for friends and family, so if there is something you would like in specific colours or styles do get in touch with me.

PlattVäv with wool and cotton, PaintedLoomStudios. (Plus me and Akasajoti creasing up for no reason!)

I was inspired to make these cushions by my lovely roommate and friend Lily. She bought a vintage bag in this traditional Swedish design PlattVäv. I was so proud of myself to work out the maths and sequencing to recreate this fabric. Maths is not my strong point, but weaving has helped re-train my brain (although I am a bit rusty, as I set up my new loom I accidentally made my first sample a third of the width I had intended because I got the maths wrong!) I really enjoyed the play of vibrant colour and geometric shapes as I wove this piece.

Golden Sun Coming Home, Wall Hanging, PaintedLoomStudios

I loved making this wall hanging. It’s the last thing that I wove in Sweden at the end of my year of training. It’s taken from a postcard that I carried with me of a painting by Swedish artist and mystic Hilma AF Klint. If you look carefully you can see the very postcard on the wall behind me. The piece comes with a little bamboo stick that threads through the top for hanging on the wall.

Naturally dyed and hand-woven cushions, PaintedLoomStudios

These are two of my favourite pieces because of all the time and care that has gone into the materials. Each colour has been dyed using plants and natural materials. The orange is rowan leaves, the green is birch leaves, the purple is wool first dyed with Madder roots and then dipped in Indigo. What I love is the vibrancy of the colour and the life of the piece. It’s sewn in the traditional way without a zipper onto linen from the shop at the bottom now the hill where we lived called Terrible Twins (great name and lovely fabric).

The Loom with a View, Gurnard Loom Room

I was absolutely delighted to be given this loom and for my aunt and uncle to so generously host me in their beautiful home. Not bad for my first weaving studio?! I’m hoping to make a few new things over the month so I’ll let you know how I get on.

Much love to you all.

Garavavati x x

I hope you are well and finding joy, meaning and connection in what can feel like troubled times. I have been very moved to see the anti-racism protests across the UK, particularly in Walthamstow last week, with so many people joyfully making a stand to unite in love. One of the placards quite simply read; ‘Walthamstow says no to hate’.

I myself have been far away from the crowds. Last Sunday I arrived in the Brecon Beacons at Tiratanaloka, a retreat centre where women and non binary people come to train for ordination into the Triratna Buddhist Tradition. I have been supporting the team of women who live and work here. They are very strong practitioners and a great inspiration to me, along with the surrounding river, ancient trees, mossy stones and hills. One of the main things we are doing here is training our minds through meditation, reflection, friendship and study of the Dharma, so that on deeper levels, unconditional love can triumph over hate.

This month’s images are expressions of my inner worlds: meditation, the imaginal realm and dreams. Meditation has been a rich and essential part of my life since the age of 25, when I first walked into the The London Buddhist Centre and learnt the Metta Bhavana, loving kindness meditation practice. Meditation is inherently meaningful. It offers deep connection to oneself and all of life. Through meditation we can connect to beauty, grief, tenderness and something far greater than the small, limited sense of self which we can feel painfully bound by. These images express some different gateways to a more creative and potentially boundless heart-mind.

The Wish Fulfilling Jewel

The Golden Abundance of Ratnasambhava who holds the wish fulfilling jewel. The Buddha of beauty, and the abundance of inner and outer riches.

Love Travels Faster than Sound

A drawing for my dear friend Laura Lamn’s beautiful song Metta Bhavana (May You Be Happy). The drawing features in Laura’s new Album Songbook 'More like Me’. Discover Laura Lamn and her rich music and artistry here.

The Bardo of Dreams

“What are days for? To wake us up. To put between the endless nights.
What are nights for? To fall through time, into another world”.

Laurie Anderson, The Heart of a Dog

Imaginal realms: the novel as a gateway

Unable to sleep in the early hours of the morning, I enter the rich, imaginal world of my novel.

Dwelling with Tara

Meditating upon White Tara and the rainbow light Mandala of Protection.

Oṃ tāre tuttāre ture mama āyuḥ-puṇya-jñāna-puṣṭiṃ kuru svāhā!

Until next month.

With much love,

Garavavati

xx

Hello dear readers

It’s lovely to be writing to you all again, it feels like it has been quite a while. I’ve journeyed through many landscapes, inner and outer, since my last letter to you.

I finished the first year of weaving school at Säterglantän and travelled from Sweden to a beautiful English woodland in Somerset for a two week camping retreat in the wilds. I was cooking for the retreat with a wonderful team. It was a rich and meaningful experience. I was delighted to be amongst other Buddhist to practice collectively and to reconnect to the beech, oak, hazel and hawthorn trees that I’d so missed when I was in Sweden.

Last week I arrived on the Isle of Wight where I will spend the Summer and am just a short walk from a quiet cove, where I have been swimming in the sea every day. I made a little video the day and evening of the full moon, if you’d like to see the beautiful coast and land surrounding me.

It’s been quite a transition and I’m just finding my feet again. I’ve so appreciated being able to spend more time with my family and old friends. I’ve also really missed weaving and am excited to have a go on an English antique loom this weekend and see if I can set it up! I’ll let you know how successful I am next month.

All of this is a long prelude to what I wanted to feature this month which is about natural dyeing. During one of our first weeks at school we learnt how to dye wool using natural materials and it was like magic. Saterglantan Craft School has a lovely outdoor kitchen and we used many natural materials to create a variety of vibrant colours. This little video shows the preparation for one piece. We used madder roots, cochineal and indigo dip dyeing to create naturally dyed red and blue coloured wool yarn. The weaving technique is called ‘colour effect’. Where the threading of the colours on the loom creates this square pattern.

And below are photos of the many other pieces that I made using, Birch leaves, Rowan leaves, Walnut husks, Golden Rod and more. My favourite colour is the orange of the Rowan leaves on white and the green of the Birch leaves on grey wool.

Many of these items will be available to buy in my online shop, coming soon! Until next month,

Sending love.

Garavavati xx

Hello dear friends

Spring has burst forth in the last two weeks and the long-time bare branched trees are now joyful with young green leaves. My first year learning traditional textile weaving is now coming to an end and it has been a very potent, challenging and creative time. Over the weekend we hosted our Summer Exhibition here at the school, displaying our final craft projects for the year.

This edition of the Month in Images is a celebration of the meaningful connections that I have made here. Alongside a drawing of a moment which has touched me, I have included a photo of each friend with their hand crafted work.

Sofia and The Wolves

Each Winter Spring morning Sofia traces wolf paw prints in the snow. They always lead her to the same mountain look out point. There she stands, imagining the wolves taking in the very same view. Last week whilst running, two white wolves appeared from between the trees, crossed her path and disappeared back into the forest. She sat down on the spot and cried with happiness, it was her dream come true.

Sofia stands next to her hand woven and hand sown Nettle Dress.

Spring Skiing with Vibeke

Vibeke has a delightful capacity for wonder and she is always the first to suggest skiing at the slightest dusting of skiable snow. This drawing arose after a glorious ski trip that we took together where Vibeke exclaimed again and again, “Ahhhhhh skiing with sun in our faces, sun in our faces!” We live on the North side of a mountain and for many Winter weeks the sun doesn’t rise above it. Hence the excitement.

Vibeke stands before her 1.5m weave for which she hand-spun all of the wool weft, a total of 60 hours at the spinning wheel.

Lily and the Divine Way of Pom

As well as being exquisitely laid back and friendly, my dear roommate Lily is also a Pom Pom pioneer. Pom Poms frequently appear in traditional Swedish folk costumes and often serve simply to bring joy to clothing. Lily has continued to spread this joy by making many Pom Pom accessories and running cosy fireside Pom Pom workshops to teach her friends the joyful art. You can learn more about Lily’s creative practice here: Lily's Substack

Felix and the First Butterfly of Spring

As soon as the sun re-appeared we all sat outside for every shared meal. On one such morning Felix spotted our first Butterfly of Spring and exclaimed, “yes I won the bet with Sofia”. Felix studies woodworking here at Saterglantan and has the earthy grounded presence that you would imagine of a folk woodworker.

Felix is inspired by religious artefacts, what they communicate and the varying impact they can have on the viewer or devotee.

Clem and mending

Clem is extremely smart and funny in equal measure. They are pictured here standing in front of their installation of mended clothes which formed part of Saterglantan’s Activism exhibit. Clem describes mending clothes as a way of remembering, acknowledging and honouring the people who originally made the garment. Clem is 20 years old and wise beyond their years, partly due to how they feel for and think deeply about the world and it’s inhabitants.

I’m back in England this weekend and am so looking forward to seeing some English hedgerows, dear old friends and my family. I’ll miss this glorious forest but I can’t wait for the sea!

Until next month,

Lots of love

Garavavati x x

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Hello dear friends

It’s lovely to think of you and write to you in this way. This is the first newsletter where I’ll try to give you a sense of what I have been learning here at craft school. I thought I could start with a little context…

I have been living at the edge of this Nordic forest, atop a high valley peak in the county of Dalarna, said to be the cultural heart of Sweden. I arrived last August, to a bountiful late Summer forest, bursting with Blueberries, Lingon berries and Chanterelle mushrooms. In late October the first snow came, enveloping the landscape with the slow, quiet of Winter. I came here to learn the craft of textile weaving. It was a rather quick decision which came after a rather painful break-up. A ‘need to leave the country’ kind of break-up.

I was drawn to the poetry of weaving. This ancient art handed down (in Europe) from woman to woman. I had images of Grecian mortals and goddesses from the classic poems, spinning thread and weaving tapestries. There seemed to be some kind of earthly magic in learning how a sheep’s fleece or a bunch of flax could become beautiful cloth.

After eight months of learning this ancient art, mainly in the long and beautiful Winter of the North, I have discovered many things. Weaving is full of beauty and precision, it involves complex and detailed mathematics, an eye for colour, and a lot of patience. And, it is magical. Although seemingly made redundant through the industrial revolution and mass production of textile, to spin flax into thread, to watch as those threads weave together to create beautiful intricate patterns, to follow a thread from it’s beginning into the final piece of cloth feels archetypal and deeply meaningful. The process of weaving has woven itself into the fabric of my being and there is so much more to learn.

I want to share the whole weaving process with you starting with warping. Once all the calculations have been made and all the thread is spun and dyed (which, takes aaaaaaaaaaaaages) one can then begin to warp. This is where you determine the width, length and density of your fabric. The warp threads are the long threads in a piece of fabric. One has to count each thread as it winds around the warping wheel. At the school, our warping wheels are in the basement of the textile house, which we sometimes share with a little mouse. Here’s a little video of me warping, kindly put together by lovely friend Laura. As you watch the film you can listen to my sweet friends Clem and Lily (and me) singing a Bulgarian folk song that we learnt from Clem this year.

This Summer I will be launching a website and selling some original art work, prints and weaves that I’ve made over the year. Here is a selection of some of the weaves that will be on sale:

Pure linen ‘Sunshine’ bath towel

Bardo Thodol Rug no.1

Avalokitesvra Lotus rug

I’m really looking forward to being back in the UK for the Summer and have even found a loom which I can borrow to continue the weaving journey.

Next month I’ll send out another email with some of my favourite drawings from the month, there are lots of sweet ones to share!

Sending love,

Garavavati x x

Hello dear friends

Greetings from a surprisingly rainy Sweden. We still have snow on the ground but day by day more green is appearing in the forest. Spring is rising up as Winter slowly melts into the woodland streams.

This is the first edition of the Month in Images. At the end of each month you’ll receive a compilation of my favourite daily drawings. So here they are…!

Alice and I walk the long forest path to the frozen lake. Half gliding on the thin blades we make our way towards the centre. Suddenly a most beautiful, awful sound resonated from deep beneath us. With a little yelp, we hurry back to the edge.

After lunch, Sofia leads us to where the first signs of green are reappearing in the forest. We lay down and let ourselves be held by the Earth as slowly she thaws in the Winter Spring.

My classmate and dear friend Malin. Listen below to hear Malin ‘calling in the cowes’, Swedish style. I recorded this whilst we were learning to spin flax into linen. You can hear her spinning wheel turning in the background!

Everybody knows the feeling…

Skiing at night under a hazey moon, gentle snow in our faces.

Even on a cloudy night, the moon lights up the forest with a mysterious blue glow.

Next month you’ll receive the first of the Weaver’s Journey newsletter, a little insight into learning the ancient art of textile weaving in the Nordic style.

Sending love,

Garavavati x x

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