What's your passion?

When you meet a person who is passionate about something, you cannot help but become at least a little bit interested in what it is that sparks that fire in them. When you are surrounded by a few hundred people with the same passion for four days, the energy in the room is undeniable and you get caught up in it. I believe I am passionate about photography, but what I feel is nothing compared to the knitters and spinners, crocheters and felters, weavers and whatever else one can do with fibre, who attend the Olds College Fibre Week the last full week in June.

A big part of Fibre Week is the Merchant Mall for the first four days.  This was the third year we had a booth with Jan’s wooden “quality tools for discerning fibre artists.” And those fibre artists are a mixed lot—young and old, and yes, a couple of men thrown in for good measure among the women. They come from all walks of life, some even take the leap and make a business out of their passion, but the one thing they all have in common is the soothing calmness they get out of their particular fibre art. Feeding batt through your fingers onto a spinning wheel and creating “pretty string” as one person described it, is meditative for most. The stresses of the day seem to be spun out of your mind, the tension leaves your shoulders, and you enter a very relaxed space as your bare feet rhythmically go up and down on the treadles of your spinning wheel.

I have a long way to go with my photography before I can get to such a place… don’t know that I ever will. But in the meantime I’ll continue to look for interesting subjects to photograph, experiment with manual settings, read some articles, and most of all have fun with it.

A Curious Spin lets you create your own batt from fibre in delicious colours