“Did I tell you the special thing that happened?” asks Master Weaver and Dunedin’s LoomRoom creator, Christine Keller, in her delight at receiving additional funding through the Creative Communities Scheme.

“The Grants Subcommittee had money rolled over from CNZ COVID funding,” Christine relates. “They decided to spread the love to operations like Dunedin’s LoomRoom.”

Dunedin’s LoomRoom is a thriving community weaving studio with regular classes and workshops in a classroom Christine built within the North East Valley’s Valley Community Workspace.

If Christine and her 60 large and small looms form the warp of the class, her students form the weft.

“For 10 years I have been doing these community classes. Four terms a year, with a 28-person intake each term. Two or three are still coming back after the whole 10 years. Existing students have first options to return to classes, as weaving isn’t something that you learn in eight weeks.”

Christine’s website states, “Weaving classes at the LoomRoom are affordable, entertaining, creative and sometimes subversive – life changing, even”.

“There is a value in creating community and creating knowledge,” she says.

Christine is an internationally qualified Master Weaver who proudly says she has received an award as best weaver of 1987 in all Germany, before further textiles study in Germany and Canada. She created Dunedin’s LoomRoom after being made redundant as a Senior Lecturer and Academic Leader in Textiles at the Otago Polytechnic Art School.

“NZ is a wool country, but today people want a quick result, which weaving does not provide. So, [back then] I thought, as weaving is the art practice I know best, I could help keep that knowledge alive and going. For me, community is really important, and I do not like to work alone. It’s a win-win situation.”