TOPANGA — They trudge up the long stairway every Saturday to Wendy Clarke's snug cottage on an oak-shaded hillside in Topanga Canyon, lugging spinning wheels and bags of uncarded wool.
"I'm so glad to be here," said film producer Kathy McMahon, setting down her wheel and passing out photos of her latest travels.
For the Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday February 19, 2000 Valley Edition Metro Part B Page 3 Zones Desk 1 inches; 18 words Type of Material: Correction
Spinning--A photo caption in Friday's Valley Life misidentified the creator of a woven sculpture. The artist was Cathy Snygg.
Clarke and Myrna Castaline are spinning carefully separated handfuls of wool into yarn, feet pedaling a silent rhythm. They stop to admire the photos, reserving cheers for a shot of sheep grazing in an English field.
Second to spinning their wool, nothing elicits more passion from the four regular members of the Topanga Spinning Guild than sheep. They know all the specialty breeds and qualities of wool they produce. Some individual sheep they know by name.
The women are part of a growing group of people who have taken up the gentle art of spinning, said Anne Seth, who teaches the subject at the Weaver's Cottage in Canyon Country. Pastimes such as spinning, weaving and knitting provide relaxation in today's fast-paced world, she said.
Spinning involves twisting the strands and pulling against the draw of the wheel to produce yarn. The treadle spinning wheel used by the guild members has changed little since it was developed more than five centuries ago.
"The wheel is just mechanical--it turns the bobbin," Clarke said. "You power it with your feet. That's what we like about it. You don't need electricity."
Clarke, a critically acclaimed video artist whose work is currently being shown at the Whitney Museum in New York, has been knitting since she was a child.
"I went to the Waldorf School-Rudolph Steiner--it's complicated, but he was a philosopher," she said. "We learned to knit in the first grade."
She took it up again recently and made shawls to wear to a memorial service for her mother, who died two years ago. McMahon saw the shawls and told Clarke, "You must learn to spin."
Clarke took classes at the Weaver's Cottage, where she learned to wash and dry the wool and spin it into yarn.
"I got addicted," she said. "You fall in love with it. Then you buy all these fleeces."
A former New York advertising executive, McMahon started knitting to relax. When she moved to California a few years ago, she experienced a sort of epiphany: "I had to learn to spin. Had to. Had to."
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