ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: ARTIST INTERVIEW
Oh What a Successful Webb She Weaves ...ONE-ON-ONE WITH FIBER ARTIST JANE WEBB
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ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: ARTIST INTERVIEWOh What a Successful Webb She Weaves ...ONE-ON-ONE WITH FIBER ARTIST JANE WEBB |
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| by Noelle Backer | |||
Jane Webb's prices run from $150 to $750. Coats run about $750 retail, jackets $500, ensembles (jacket, top, and skirt or pants) are $685, silk jackets are $300, and silk ensembles (which she says are "perfect for weddings") run $485, and vests, woven or silk, are $150. |
TCR: How did you begin working in fiber?
JW: My dad was a hobby woodworker -- cabinetmaking and turning -- and my mom did couture-quality sewing. Buying clothes was considered foolish in our family. Why would someone settle for expensive clothing of poor quality when you could make it yourself and not look like everybody else?
So, my mother taught me to sew, and an old lady friend taught me to knit when I was about 10. As a kid, I loved playing dress-up and I loved playing with fabric scraps.
After I was married, my husband and I lived in Japan for a few years, and I was impressed by the wonderful textiles there. When our kids were born, I stayed home with them and designed and worked on a great deal of needlepoint, and made latch-hooked rugs.
Sometime in the early '70s, I took a weaving course. My husband was transferred to Holland in the middle of it, so that effort was put on the back burner. Ten years later, he gave me a rosewood shuttle for my birthday and told me I could have a loom to go with it if I wanted it.
We assembled the loom together, and I took off! I made placemats, table runners, shawls and scarves -- all sorts of flat, square things. But that wasn't very satisfying, so I began making fabric and all sorts of clothing for myself, my mother, my cousin, and all the women I knew. Soon, people were asking me to make things for them "if they paid for the materials." I worked hard at this before I decided to "go into business."
It wasn't long before I saw that I couldn't use the very expensive yarns I loved if I wanted to make any money selling things, so I bought a spinning wheel and taught myself to spin. Then I realized that proper coats and jackets need linings, so I bought silk and dyed it. That wasn't enough fun, so I started painting on the silk. And that's how my business has grown.
TCR: What challenges did you face in the beginning? How did you overcome them?
JW: Space was a challenge. I started in a spare room, but soon my son saw that I was overflowing it, and offered to switch his bedroom for the smaller spare room. Next, my studio moved into the family room. Then we moved, and I had a real studio of my own, on two floors -- with additional rooms being pressed into service as my business expanded.
We have since moved again, and all my workspace is now on the same floor. I have everything I need -- a loom room, an office room, a sewing room and dye kitchen -- plus a wonderful view.
The only technical challenge that I faced was in the matter of shrinkage. When fabric comes off the loom, it's a web. Only after it has been washed is it really fabric. Because different fibers and different patterns shrink more than others, it was a challenge at first to make sure the fabric stayed flat.
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TCR: Who is the market for your work? How do you reach them?
JW: Just when I decide what my "demographics" are -- mostly women between 30 and 60, with education and a fair amount of disposable income -- I seem to sell to a whole gaggle of younger people. Or three men in a row approach me for a special garment, like a wedding vest, and several men want to buy things for their wives. Or some very old lady asks if she can make payments on a coat because she can't afford it but doesn't think she can live without it. So, anybody could fit into the category.
As for promoting my work, I have had two or three sales reps, but none of them worked out for me. I do send mailings occasionally, and do wholesale and retail shows, like the Southwest Crafts Show (in Albuquerque, N.M.), Contemporary Crafts Markets in Santa Monica and San Francisco, Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, Art, Beats 'n Eats in Michigan, Three Rivers in Pittsburgh -- it varies from year to year. I usually do about eight to 10 retail shows and maybe two wholesale shows a year.
TCR: How did your gallery sales come about?
JW: Mostly, the shops I sell to have approached me at shows -- either retail or wholesale. I sell to shops all over the country, as well as some in Japan and Europe, but cold calls don't work very well. I send mailings to shops I've read about or seen in my travels, if I think they could sell my work profitably.
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TCR: How did you make the decision to exhibit at trade shows? What did the transition from retail to wholesale entail?
JW: The transition from retail-only to wholesale wasn't especially dramatic. I had sold to shops well before doing a wholesale show, so I was comfortable with the process.
But I wasn't comfortable when I decided to participate in the Apparel Market in Chicago (312-527-7600) for the first time. ... I was scared to death! The "Rag Trade" has such a bad reputation for being cutthroat. But I found my work was very well-received. Most shops and boutiques don't even think of going to a craft show to find products, so they had never seen anything like it before. Because my work is not really "copyable" by anyone who's not willing to spin, weave, dye and paint, I didn't worry about being ripped off at the big market shows.
TCR: What, in terms of business insight, have you learned to do or not to do over the years?
JW: I've learned to try out new styles before I make a lot of them! But this can be frustrating, because I'll have only one or two of something, and those are the ones that immediately sell. Then I wish I had made more. But there have been a couple of styles that just didn't fly. Usually these have been ones that don't look good on a hanger.
I always offer tops and skirts or pants to match the silk linings, but I have learned not to make too many of these ahead of time, either. The jackets fit a variety of sizes without doing special orders, but the outfits underneath are more size-sensitive.
TCR: Do you see any challenges specific to wearable artists? How do you get around them?
JW: Selling wearables wholesale is difficult because galleries think it's clothing, and boutiques tend to think it's art and sometimes wonder how their customers will react to "art" -- are they brave enough to wear it? The reason I decided to make mainly coats and jackets is because a gallery doesn't need fitting rooms to sell these -- just a mirror will do.
Size is not usually a problem. Although my work is one-of-a-kind, I can usually reproduce a garment fairly closely in whatever size is necessary. As I don't work from patterns, I take measurements and work from there.
TCR: What has been the most difficult thing you have encountered in your line of work?
JW: Becoming rich and famous!
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TCR: Do you have any plans for a Web site?
JW: I bought the domain name WebbWeave.com some time ago, and plan to eventually have a site. But whether I do it myself or have someone else do it, this means time, of which I never seem to have enough.
TCR: What do you like most about your life/career?
JW: I like being captain of my own fate. I like being at home where I can take care of my responsibilities and do my own thing at the same time. I like the challenge of managing my time efficiently. It's good to be able to step out my studio door and take the dogs for a walk in the woods.
I like traveling, meeting people and seeing new things -- but I really like it when I can come home and be by myself, and dream up new things to do and new ways to do them.
I enjoy all the aspects of what I do -- the contemplative nature of the spinning, the "pinch of this, pinch of that" freedom of the dyeing, the artistry of the silk painting, even the construction of the garments. I really enjoy the restrictions placed on my creativity by the squares of the loom. It's creating within a framework, not just wild-blue foolishness.
TCR: What would you change about it, if anything?
JW: I would give myself one week a month where the rest of the world stopped, and I could catch up.
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Jane Webb |
TCR: Where do you expect your life and work to go from here?
JW: I don't really expect things to change much. When I have gotten really large orders with a short lead time, I have had people I know do some of the sewing for me. But aside from that, I'm unwilling to let it out of my own hands.
I'm happy to go on making wonderful things for people to wear. It pleases me to no end to see someone really excited about something I have dreamed up and made from scratch.
TCR: Where do you get your materials and tools?
JW: I use Jagger Brothers warps (207-324-5622; www.jaggeryarn.com) exclusively.
I buy wool off the sheep wherever I find it. Currently, I am working with some sheep raisers in Montana and Idaho, who offer "Predator Friendly Wool." They manage their pastures, and use guard animals (dogs, llamas, donkeys) instead of poison, traps and shooting to control predation. I'm very much in favor of that!
I buy dyes from W. Cushing & Company (800-626-7847; www.wcushing.com), Dharma Trading Co. (800-542-5227 or 415-456-7657; www.dharmatrading.com), and Jacquard (800-442-0455 or 707-433-9577; http://jacquardproducts.com). Jacquard offers natural dyes with which I've had very good results.
Sometimes I buy wool (or alpaca or angora or mohair) in some further stage of preparation -- already washed, or carded, or dyed.
Noelle Backer is senior editor of The Crafts Report.
AUGUST 1999:
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