Ok, so, first: such a totaly cool property. Where else can you see steam tractors, Model A Trucks, a blacksmith shop run by belts attached to a steeam engine and old looms with people making rugs and cloth? The answer is nowhere else than the Antique Gas & Steam Engine Museum.
You need to go if you have any testosterone on your system.
I was there doing research for a production of A Middsummer Night's Dream. No, really. You see, my contention is that Nick Bottom, the weaver, wove the play from his own fantasy after selling some silk cloth to Hyppolita. Think about it...
So here are a few photos and comments...
There were Alpacas giving wool. These cute little crestures hafe very soft wool. They also have soft teeth and feet (for climbing mountains) so they're softer on the land on which they tread and feed.
Spinners spinning. This noce woman was working on a wheel made by her husband in the 70s. She told me all I wanted to know about spinning, weaving and community organizing around teaching kids to spin and weave. Lots of great ideas about The Dream...
And weavers weaving. It was cool! Of course you know that Nick Bottom was a weaver and it is my assertion that Hyppolita came to him for cloth for a wedding dress and started the whole fantasy upon which the dream is based. You see, he tells his friend PEter Quince to write him a ballad based on this strange dream he had in which Hyppolita was also Queen of the Fairies and he got tro hang with her (and all his friends were Fairies). More on that later.
So my idea is to use human-powered items (like spinning wheels) to provide light and sound for the only Midsummer Night's Dream that the audience has to sun to keep up with.
So I was there to get some process going with regards to The Dream -- weavers weaving, tinkers tinking and joiners joining. There are w few Weavers' Guilds here in San Diego county and I expect to get a hold of them and find out how they help, educate and share with us. More soon -- espeially on all the other cool stuff at the museum! More soon...
