Introducing Samantha Klassen

Introducing Samantha Klassen, Artist in Residence | Weaver’s Apprentice

Last year as part of our “Vocation Stories” evening series, Lois Ward shared her vocation story using the metaphor of weaving to describe her journey. For Lois, vocation was not so much a matter of having heard a clear “call” and pursuing it throughout her life. Instead, it was in looking back at the threads of her work and life experiences that she could see how they had been woven together to become what she now recognized as her vocation.

Inspired by this metaphor, the Communities of Calling team drafted a proposal for a year-long collaborative weaving project that would be part of engaging the saint ben’s congregation in thinking about call and vocation. Samantha Klassen was chosen as Artist in Residence | Weaver’s Apprentice to facilitate the project, in collaboration with Carolyn Mount who is a weaver in Fort Frances, Ontario, and a member of the SBT community.

The weaving project will be underway most Sunday evenings throughout the year. Everyone is most welcome to participate. No experience is necessary.

Would you be more excited if someone gave you a large bag and told you that, on their dime, you could fill it with whatever books you wanted, or whatever tools you wanted?

This is the question my parents asked me the year after I graduated high school, as I agonized about whether to go to university or trade school. I had truly loved academics in high school, but I also had a particular fondness for the wood shop. I knew I wanted to work with my hands, but I also had big questions and needed a place to unpack them. It felt like in order to make a decision I had to wrench apart two equally important parts of myself.

With some hesitation I opted to start with university. I moved to Winnipeg and spent my first three years studying at CMU. That experience was formative in a way that will shape my thinking for years to come. Now, five and a half years later, I’m back in the shop – this time the print shop – enrolled in the Graphic & Print Technician certificate program at MITT. I’m learning how to operate presses, understand paper and plot vinyl. Academia isn’t finished with me yet, but the happiness I feel getting ink under my fingernails seems like a sign that, for now, I’m where I need to be.

The question my parents asked is a good one, but not one I’ve ever been able to definitively answer. Instead, I’ve spent a great deal of time trying to come up with a legitimate way to answer “yes” to an either/or question. The work of making and the work of thinking – what if they don’t have to be mutually exclusive? What if belonging to an incarnational faith actually means they need to be deeply integrated? And what might it mean to think through our hands, rather than only through our minds?

Jeremy Begbie writes about doing theology through music, rather than just theology about music. One of the reasons I’m excited about this year’s collaborative weaving project, which I will be facilitating as Artist in Residence | Weaver’s Apprentice, is that it’s an opportunity for us to collectively do theology through the material process of weaving. Those who “do theology” as scholars immerse themselves in reading, thought, prayer and writing, probing the depths of understanding in the realm of faith. What we will be doing is similar, just instead of sinking our teeth into words and ideas, we’ll be giving our full attention to warps, wefts, selvedges, shuttles, and sheds, allowing ourselves to be taught by the materials and tools themselves.

Sometimes what we learn will be beyond our ability or even our inclination to describe it, and other times it will prompt reflection and articulation. Both are good. One of the things I have long admired about the SBT artist residency program is that the focus is always on process, not on product. There is no pressure to extract profound insights from the project, or to produce something exceptional. All that is asked of us is to give ourselves to the work and pay attention as it unfolds. Where it takes us from there is anyone’s guess.

If you are interested in doing some weaving, look for me at the back of the church on Sunday evenings. I’ll have a loom, a bunch of yarn, and some idea of what I’m doing. I would love for you to join me.

Samantha is currently a student at MITT in the Graphic & Print Technician program. She makes and sells notebooks under the name Complicatio Bookbinding and is the technical producer of The Ferment Podcast.