Travis Meinolf - textiles & social practice

My dear friend Nancy sent me a link to this craft theory reading list, where I found out about the dreamer / action weaver Travis Meinolf.  His dream is to incite a future culture that is gentle and self-reliant (using The Gallery as a space for experimentation), and his tools to start the revolution are sweet weaving looms that everyone can use.  The one I am really interested in is called a laser loom, and attaches to your waist while you weave.  
(this is his demo video)

His 2008 thesis paper (MFA from CCA) Common Goods proposes a revising of culture by spreading the skill of making your own fabric:


"Our objects are a concrete expression of our culture. Production, exchange, and distribution of commodities are the driving forces of culture. Production especially is deeply linked with the structure of society. This fact gives us a lens through which to consider this
global market economy, in which seductive objects are hastily made by near slave-labor to be impetuously consumed and swiftly discarded.
But more importantly, we can become object producers ourselves. We can aspire to recapture the reins of our immediate modes of production and exchange, and then the fact of commodities as agents of culture holds great power.
If we take control of production we are taking that power back.
This is a path for those of us who would non-violently change society: change its commodities, its understanding of production, of distribution and exchange. Even the way we relate to things personally. Do you have a sweater or other garment made for you by a relative or close friend? How does that feel to use when compared with something from a store? Imagine if, rather than wearing blinders to remain ignorant of the grotesque production processes that made all of your stuff, you could celebrate and enjoy the vision of its creation you hold in your mind like
that grandmother-knit sweater! What if you could feel that warmth for each item in your household: clothes, plates, chairs, blankets, bicycles? Each thing imbued with an awareness of its loving, familiar source. "

His example of the sensual experience of wearing a handmade garment is much in line with what I envision for wannamake.  I am interested in the histories reused fabrics hold, the action of saving those fabrics from a landfill, and the satisfaction given in wearing something personalized or handmade.  It seems inevitable to feel warmth and personal connection to your household items- each one holds a story for you, even if it was mass-produced you may have an anecdote attached to how you obtained it or one special time you utilized it that imbues it with meaning.  I don't want to get into a scary preachy zone here, but sometimes it is disturbing to look at a manufactured product and start to think about the hands that made it- the place (working conditions) it was born in- the source of the materials- many of those histories that objects hold are very dark.

His paper also makes me think of the idea of the 'aesthetically sensitive', and Penny Sparke's theories on the domination of male product production dictating the aesthetic of feminine taste.  If we are able to identify our own particular taste, then we have the power to build up our surroundings to suit it.  This familiarity of functional objects that Meinolf suggests is comforting not only in that our surroundings suit our aesthetic, but that they suit our morals and priorities.