Film One in a series of an artist residency at Buttermilk Falls Folk School in Osceola, WI. Calvin Stalvig captures the process of creating yarn from a local Shetland fleece that he washed and combed during the summer of 2015. In his work, Calvin explores slow craftsmanship, cyclical processes, biophilia, the histories of textiles, and engagement of community through real life and social media exchange. For more information visit www.stalvig.com Filmed and Edited by: Calvin Stalvig

Sitting in this field with birds gliding overhead and honeybees buzzing against my skin I imagine this wool, this simple fiber is a physical embodiment of the sun. Grass and plants are the primary cells that store the energy of our celestial life force, the sheep are sustained by that flora, and in turn, a beautiful fleece grows from it. It’s a transfer of energy. 

Are humans manipulating the earth, or are we simply doing the work of plants? This is the kind of thought that passes through my head like a cloud on the breeze when I am working with my hands in this way. When combing the fiber for spinning, seeds and burrs of the fields the sheep grazed in fall to the ground. They are of the land and also the very beginning of the nutrition that helped to produce the fiber in the first place. I think if a seed or two are resilient enough to make their way all the way to the end, into the fabric of the sweater until being taken far away in order to fall off and find new soil to sew, well then that is divine design.

I’m astounded by the cycle, the spinning of the wheel—or rather, I am hypnotized by it. Everything has its time and place; everything is set in rhythm. 

I comb open the sheep locks and then spin the clouds into yarn. Next month I will begin the task of knitting a sweater so that by the time the crisp air of Autumn returns, there will be something of the summer sun to keep my skin warm through the cold nights of winter. In the meantime, there is yarn that must be made.