By David F. Rooney
Everyone has the right to reinvent themselves and Inge Anhorn is no exception.
Long known in Revelstoke as a creative potter, the diminutive artist sold her house and moved to Richmond three years ago to do just that. Now she’s back with a new set of skills she is putting to work as a weaver.
“This takes up my whole life now — morning, noon and night,” she laughs as she shows off the loom that occupies one room of her condo at Selkirk Gardens. “But I won’t make a living at it unless I turn industrial.”
Inge has always been something of an energetic person — you might even characterize her as a regular little fire ball — but industrial? No, she enjoys the time and painstaking precision of this new craft too much to “turn industrial.”
Give her a minute and she’ll tell you all about how she spends her time working with the threads, what a weft is and a warp. She loves it!
“This is really demanding work but very, very rewarding,” she says. “It challenges your knowledge and your intuition. And you really have to be intuitive!”
But reinventing her artistic passions is one thing. Set that aside for a moment and you’ll find she’s the same Inge Anhorn artists in Revelstoke have come to know and love over the years: bright, optimistic and almost boundlessly energetic.
She learned a lot in the Lower Mainland through the Richmond Spinners and Weavers’ Guild and while there isn’t a similar group here few people who know her would be surprised if she helped organize a similar guild here. After all, she’s not the only weaver in town. Janet Pearson and Coreen Tucker also weave and Inge’s heard there’s at least one spinner in town.
So, is there a Spinners’ and Weavers’ Guild in Revelstoke’s future? If you’re interested in starting one, be sure to talk with Inge.
