Shelter/In plain sight recollects an ancient textile typology - the shaggy pile-woven cloak or vararfeldur woven on a warp-weighted loom. My interest in this arcane garment sprung from a chance encounter in 2023 with Michèle Hayeur Smith who has extensively researched the “grey shaggy pile-cloak” and its connection to North Atlantic cultures. An archaeologist and artist, Hayeur Smith suggests that the cloak, woven with tufts of tog - the long wool of the dual-coated Icelandic sheep - was the ideal protective garment for the early Vikings travelling across the cold North Atlantic ocean. It was a more resilient than sheepskin and water repellant due to the pile structure and lanolin in the wool locks.[i] This type of cloak was a trade commodity and formed part of the early Icelandic economic system based on cloth currency. Vararfeldir was valued higher than the usual vaðmál- or cloth currency (vað- cloth, mál- made to measure). In 2024, the opportunity arose to weave on a warp-weighted loom at the Icelandic Textile Centre in Blönduós, Iceland. I immediately began planning Shelter/In plain sight based on my research of Icelandic vararfeldir.
I was drawn to the history of the cloak, its unique structure and the technical aspects of weaving on a warp-weighted loom. The Icelandic version of the cloak uses a unique pile knot and handspun weft made from the þel (pronounced “thel”) of the Icelandic sheep. This is the soft undercoat which fulls easily, producing a very warm cloth. Conceptually the project grew from my interest in the materiality of wool and its connection to place. From the start it was clear that I wanted to entwine the landscapes of Treaty Seven territory and Iceland by using wool from each place. Cotswold sourced from shepherd Tara Klager in the foothills west of Mohkinstsis (Calgary) made for a strong, unbreakable warp thread. I spun the warp and prepared it in the traditional manner for weaving on a warp-weighted loom with a card-woven starting band. The pattern for this band was inspired by a 1000 year-old textile fragment found in the grave of an early Viking-Age female settler from Ketilsstaðir, Iceland.[ii] For both weft and pile, I used five Icelandic sheep fleeces in grey, black and brown sourced from Blönduós area shepherd Jóhanna Erla Pálmadóttir who also invited me to visit her family farm. The most striking thing about the visit was the familiarity of the landscape surrounding Blönduós which resembled the area where my parents currently live near Delia, Alberta.
Since the methodology for weaving on a warp-weighted loom was entirely new to me, I spent more than a week setting up the Norwegian tapestry loom so that it would weave like the old Icelandic loom. [iii] I discussed the project with Icelandic artist, weaver and textile history expert Ragnheiður Björk Þórsdóttir who had lent the loom I was using. It was fascinating to work out technical adaptations to the loom while also planning for how the cloak would look. I wanted the image or pattern woven into the cloak would somehow resonate with its history and the place it comes from. With the vararfeldur, the function of the cloth was in direct relationship to a specific landscape - making habitation in a particularly challenging place possible. Hildur Hákonardóttir speculates on the different ways a varafeldur might have been used. She writes, “It was useful for those who spent long hours outside in the cold, watching over sheep or fishing…, or aboard ships - or for those who lay in wait for the prey while hunting, …”[iv] (emphasis mine) This mimetic aspect of the cloak suggested by Hákonardóttir is very compelling. The person wearing a vararfeldur borrows the traits of an animal to survive or even disguise themselves on the land. With this in mind, I composed the pile for Shelter/In plain sight according to a pixelated photograph of Icelandic turf to mimic the landscape. The resulting organic abstraction feels somehow animal and vegetal at the same time. Shelter/In plain sight entangles cultures, histories and technologies both ancient and new. It is not necessarily a re-creation of a specific historic textile, but instead the wooly manifestation of weaving research praxis and the material recollection of an unfamiliar landscape. I may have only spent a little time in Iceland, but somehow it also felt like home.
When I finished weaving at four in the morning, I untied the cords suspending the loom weights and cut the cloth from the loom. My first instinct was to take the vararfeldur outside. I walked to the Blanda riverbank with nearly four kilograms of shaggy wool cloth over my shoulder. I carefully laid the piece out on the rocks at the edge of the river and took a few photographs. The shaggy pile blended instantly with the rocks and moss as though it had always been a part of this landscape. There it lay, a year of combing, spinning and weaving hiding in plain sight.
[i] Michele Hayeur Smith, King Harald’s Gray Cloak: Vararfeldir and the Trade in Shaggy Pile Weave Cloaks between Iceland, Norway and the Late Viking and Early Middle Ages in Textiles of the Viking North Atlantic: Analysis, Interpretation, Re-creation, edited by Alexandra Lester Makin and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, page 53
[ii]Kevin P. Smith, Michele Hayeur Smith & Karin Margareta Frei, “"Tangled Up in Blue": The Death, Dress and Identity of an Early Viking-Age Female Settler from Ketilsstaðir, Iceland“ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333853498_Tangled_Up_in_Blue_The_Death_Dress_and_Identity_of_an_Early_Viking-Age_Female_Settler_from_Ketilsstadir_Iceland
[iii] As the loom was not a typical vertical warp-weighted loom, several adaptations were necessary to weave the traditional twill pattern. Additionally, the loom was designed to weave from the bottom up and not from the top down like the old Icelandic loom, meaning the pile not and lifting order for the heddle sticks was reversed.
[iv]Hildur Hákonardóttir, “Iceland’s Settlement and Trade in Woven Goods in The Warp Weighted Loom by Hildur Hákonardóttir, Elizabeth Johnston & Marta Kløve Juuhl, page 28