This Spotlights honors one of our members as part of our 75th Anniversary Celebration.
- by sandy mclain hochmuth
Jan Macklin, whose graphic email is “ICColor,” has been a guild member since 2017. Coming out of a rough patch (a family member with cancer and two other family deaths, plus three part time jobs), she was exploring for herself again. On impulse, she dropped in on a guild meeting, Paula B. presiding. It had been “so long since she had laughed that much, and had such a good time,” she left “with her spirits high and a check written for membership dues.”
At the University of Kansas, in 1978, Jan pursued an Art Education degree. Though engrossed in two dimensional art, she decided to try fiber. The university housed its looms and weaving facilities in a WWII barracks and that’s where Jan (running to the barracks and slightly out of breath) learned to love the loom. She fondly remembers her instructor, Evelyn DeGraw, obviously experienced, tartly telling her “you made a treadling mistake, you know what to do, now fix it and move on.” Life lessons from weaving…
Christmas, 1985. Jan had been saving pennies for a coveted new Norwood. Into the eggnog, husband Tod said he and her father-in-law had something to show her. There, on the bed of Tod’s truck, in all its glorious magnificence, red bow on top, was her Christmas present from the two connivers, her magnificent fifty inch 8-harness loom. Bow off, warp on!
The Fine Line folks introduced her to fashion and runway work, then to North Shore Weavers, to their fashion show — modeling a garment she’d constructed (encouraged by her aunt who was into tailoring and Vogue sewing classes). Next was breaking her first rule, “don’t cut woven fabrics.” Scissors in hand, she cut, sewed, and felted a red wool jacket, with which she earned a second place ribbon at the Illinois State Fair. Increasingly confident, Jan entered fashion and garment shows in adjacent states, taking best in show awards. THEN came Michigan. In 2013, the Michigan Weavers state meeting offered a workshop series AND fashion show. Dianne Totten’s garment workshop was filled, but Jan sent in her fashion show entry anyway. With an ikat dyed jacket and matching polka dotted skirt, she was on her way in an older car – with no A/C, horrible traffic on the Borman, no place to park, missing the rehearsal, hurry up, get ready for the show, wash in the ladies college bathroom, heels, tights, skirt and jacket, into a small dark closet, out on the runway – and only three people in the audience (but Mary Sue Fenner was one of the three). Invited to the after-party, she declined, drove home, but left her jacket for display with the promise that she’d get it back. Three weeks elapse, Jan’s a little worried. Oops – there’s the mailman with a box and a letter, and Jan had won the Best of Show, the HGA, the Judges and People’s Choice awards.
Her other, not so secret, love has been the dye vat with natural dyes (whence came ICColor, of course). She spent two years acquiring the HGA Certificate of Excellence in Dyeing, answered one hundred plus questions, made one hundred samples. Prepared, she opened her dyeing studio in Rockford, dyed yarns for commercial accounts and commissioned works (still found time to weave on her beloved looms at home, miles away in Marengo).
Jan is a major contributor to local guilds and fiber organizations. She teaches and demonstrates at schools and fairs, wanting to open the window on what many people consider a mysterious craft. She is recognized for her excellence in weaving – and willingness to share. She loves weaving, in all parts: designing, sketching, sampling. Dislike? She hates moving, removing or replacing heddles, and will do anything to avoid it – and, true confession, does use crossed heddles, VERY carefully. She tells us she knocks out about six projects each month, which, to this author, is particularly daunting. What does she like doing best? Fashion garments and accessories for home, of course!
Illinois Prairie Weavers Guild 