STEEL YARN DIARY

‘To know a man you must know his house’, this was the old philosopher’s saying that Mr Junichi Arai, probably the worlds greatest weaver, quoted to me when I asked him if he would write a forward for the catalogue of my retrospective exhibition. This request made in February 1996 was not as cheeky as it sounds; Mr Arai had been part of the amazing Welcome Peter Collingwood Committee that arranged our visit when I had a one-man show in Kyoto and Tokyo in 1985. Like me he is a structuralist; he loves to invent and often does the seemingly impossible in weaving, both by hand and by machine.

So obeying that saying he came to Nayland for a few days last autumn and we had a talk which was meant to be an interview, though I found his non-western questions difficult to answer. One thing he gave me on that occasion was a small quantity of a newly invented yarn made from stainless steel. It was about the size of 2/ply carpet wool and consisted of 6,000 micro filaments of steel made into a 2/ply yarn. Naturally it had the shine of steel but its grey colour surprised me. It looked like silk until you handled it then its weight said metal. As a passing comment I said how I would love to try it in one of my macrogauzes.

Months later Mr Arai said that it had been agreed that I should make a large macrogauze for a new building in his city of Kiryu and would I like to use the steel yarn? Moreover they would like me to come and "view the site". He sent me about two pounds of the yarn, just enough to make two macrogauze samples , one flat, one 3D. The flight to Japan is 9 or more hours long, so I was glad that the sight of my walking stick and pleading face led the check-in girl to upgrade me to first class. I had to unroll the hangings at the x-ray machine and give a short seminar on weaving to the puzzled staff. Wanting to make something for Arai as a gift I spent many of the 9 hours ply-splitting, which interested the cabin staff but was totally ignored by other first class individuals.

Kiryu has a long association with textiles especially silk weaving, so the new building, a Cultural Centre of great size, was inspired by the shape and colour of a silk cocoon. See pic? The site for my hanging was against a huge concrete wall bang in the middle of the entrance hall, a wonderful but daunting position. Light came through complex glazing bars in a sloping glass roof and would make any textile look interesting. Looking at this immense flat spread of grey concrete I agreed with Arai a 3D hanging was appropriate.

After a long tour through this building I was taken to the factory which manufactured the steel yarn. Its normal output is the wire for radial car tyres; two men from its New Product Department gave me my first sight of a wire drawing works. I walked for seeming miles by the incredibly long machines which had to be kept going 24 hours a day. The wire was gradually drawn finer and finer, passing through furnaces and chemical baths. Hardly any workers were visible; but an uncanny robotic fork-lift truck went about its mysterious business.

Finally we came to the steel yarn itself and I was excited to see spools in several colours; later, a shade card showed how heat treatment could give a range of really rich deep colours, presumably permanent, to the basic grey yarn. I chose three colours for the hanging, the natural grey, a golden brown and a dark brown with a touch of aubergine in it. The last two would have to be specially produced as at the moment no stock is held. Then another surprise, a few precious metres of a much finer steel thread, the latest development. Mr Arai leapt on this with pleasure and I imagined his mind already working out what he could do with it as he fingered the few inches he had been given.

Back in England I knew I had at least a month’s wait for the yarn. I made a mock-up of a section of the proposed hanging, but in linen, just to get the measurements correct. Working seated in my adapted loom was awkward with a very long stretch forward. So I tried standing, bending forward with my head leaning against a padded board I rigged up; this was more comfortable. It had to be; the hanging would entail weaving 9 strips each 32 inches wide and 5 metres long, quite a lot of work.

When weaving macrogauzes with linen I fix the woven-in metal rods with a simple paper glue, poly vynil acrylate, like the Elmer’s glue used in US. As this was obviously not suitable for fixing steel warp and weft, I had experimented with superglue while making the two samples. The problem was to find it with the correct viscosity; if it was too runny it "wicked" up and down into the unwoven threads converting them into stiff little wires. I learned to call this glue by its proper name, cyanoacrylate, and so could talk to manufacturers with seeming know-how. One became interested and sent me different types until the glue with correct viscosity was found.

27 JANUARY

Yarn arrives from Japan. Three small boxes so I think this must be a partial delivery of the promised 60 kilo. But a failed attempt to lift one box proves otherwise. When opened I see the three colours of stainless steel yarn I had chosen wound on large metal spools each a heavy lift in itself. Packed in extraordinary bubble paper, a string of sausage-sized bubbles which give a pistol crack when stamped on.

Wind yarn from one spool onto 6 wooden bobbins and put these in my rack for warping, but find their dead weight prevents them turning easily and the vertical mill is impossible to revolve. Then try using the metal spools themselves, turned on their sides, with thread coming up through the dents of a reed placed some distance above. This works..just.. but I can see warping is not going to be easy. Did not try winding onto cones thinking the yarn too slippery to stay on.

The steel yarn’s overriding obedience is to gravity. If it can possibly slip, slither, or slide down where an ordinary yarn would not, it certainly will. If there is some projection it will snake out to catch it. Luckily its strength means this just stops the mill with a jerk; nothing can break. When on the mill, it began to slip down the vertical uprights until I stuck strips of Velcro onto them. Despite this slipperiness it holds well once it is knotted; against this any slight tangle is immovable until each thread is pulled out separately.

In the macrogauze technique I make a succession of one inch wide warps of 18 ends and wind them onto small flanged bobbins, the yarn running directly from the mill to bobbin. Each warp is then threaded on an inch wide rigid heddle. With my normal linen warp I use a fine hook for this, but for the steel I have to make a little wire loop the hook not being strong enough. It is when threading a rigid heddle that you realise how much the dents bend apart when pulling the hook through a normal reed; the rigid heddle’s eye however is fixed in size and it is quite a struggle to pull the steel through.

I only thread a few this first day.

28 JANUARY

In bed that night I have the horrible realisation that the design I have worked out, grading my three colours into each other, needs more of one colour than of the other two and I have equal amounts of all three. By the morning I have another idea, weaving each of the nine vertical 3D strips in a solid colour and then arranging these in an asymmetrical way when erected. As the Silk Hall in the Cultural Centre has a lot of horizontals this is probably a better solution.

Trying to draw this out takes some time as all the colours I have are body paints! This settled, I make more warps for this first strip. Doing these, I notice that the yarn varies markedly in colour. I like this effect but imagine it would be a drawback in some circumstances. I was forewarned of this in Japan; for speed in the colouring process they were going to heat-treat two threads at a time and where they touched slightly the colour would be altered.

Today another parcel comes from Metalpha with a small cone of the wonderful finer version of the steel yarn; this is really exciting stuff, more like clothing weight.

29 JANUARY

Continue warp making. Have a feeling the spools are emptying too fast so do a length against weight check and find there are around 520 metres to the kilo instead of the 700 I had been led to believe. This means I am 15 kilos short for this job. Much rechecking both with calculator and paper and pencil, then send an urgent fax to Japan stating the position. Knowing it takes time to get these colours from the basic yarn I just hope they can make them quickly.

Today’s less serious but infuriating disaster is to discover I have wiped out this diary. Being asked by a little box on screen whether I wanted to "overwrite" my document I had made the wrong reply to this then puzzling question. So the above diary form is spurious all being written today.

30 JANUARY

Worrying about this upsetting insufficiency of yarn means I am still awake at 2.0 am in the morning when the answering fax from Metalpha comes through. Thank goodness they say they will send a further 6.5 kilo of each colour and dispatch this amount on 7th February. This means I can go ahead with confidence. I am so relieved that I feel I must celebrate, so sit up in bed drinking a (small) bottle of beer and dipping into ‘Behold this Dreamer’, Walter de la Mere’s anthology. Two more faxes arrive in the night explaining how this misunderstanding arose. I now learn that the yarn weighs exactly 1,85 grams per metre, so there are about 540 metres per kilo.

Answer the above faxes then finish making the first warp. Hating the awkward jerky way the yarn comes off the metal spools, I try winding some onto a cone and am surprised to find the yarn makes a solid, heavy, mass without any tendency to slip off the tip. Next warp will be made this way.

31 JANUARY

Many discoveries today. Though the yarn is exceedingly strong--I was told three strands would support the weight of a person--its many fine filaments are ready to catch hold on anything and so get pulled out of position. I find this while hanging the warps over the loom’s extension bar so put strips of Danger with Care tape along its edge.

The extreme non-elasticity of the yarn becomes apparent as I tighten each one-inch warp to front beam. Though I comb the 18 threads through my fingers before tying as usual there always seems to be one or two which resolutely sag. Hope they get taken up in first few picks of the heading. As I start the latter I find the shed when I push the batten down extremely hard to obtain. In the last inch of the push I am not only slightly lifting the 38 weights but the 38 heavy-loaded bobbins. It is impossible in one movement; have to make first one side then the other engage with the side hooks. Try to rig up a pedal to pull down the batten; eye-splices on end of piece of rope fix it to the batten, rope then goes down to an old floorboard acting as pedal. Almost succeed but the batten has to be free to swing forward when beating; this means repeatedly putting rope on and off batten..impractical.

At last, throw very first pick of hanging itself and surprised how easily shuttle runs across the slick threads. The sheds are not consistently perfect; the steel yarn tending to stick in places. So I hold an old car mirror at the side and look through the shed at a piece of white paper pinned up on wall and can easily spot any misplaced threads and correct them. When the rods are woven in I find applying the cyanoacrylate simple; the accelerator is squirted down a narrow tube so hardly pollutes the air at all.

The first crossover of threads--eight over eight--is horrible. The warp, under tension due to heavy bobbins, really resists this manoeuvre. The rigid heddles slope and foul each other. There are 108 such crossings in the hanging so a solution must be found. All I can think of now is to use, in the next strip, two-inch wide heddles which I know due their size will not behave in this infuriating way.

1 FEBRUARY

Second crossover starts equally badly. Then I pair the heddles with elastic bands, so I am now moving two inches of warp at a time, and it is immediately easier. So the wider heddles for next strip will make a lot of difference.

This made way for the next problem. The weight of the warp bobbins exerts such a tension on the warp that the front stick will not slide over the square section breast beam when I pump the cloth beam lever up and down. (Perhaps it would go over a revolving breast beam). Two people have to wrestle and force the stick over and pump lever at same time. It is almost as difficult to get first woven-in rods over breast beam. There has to be some way of lifting the heavy bobbins up during turning on. Begin to think this steel yarn is not such a turn on! Position is complicated by the fact that the canvas apron is probably 30 years old and to put so much tension on it that it splits would be a real disaster.

A saving grace is that the crossing steel yarns look wonderful; to concentrate on that and not on the number of such crossovers still to be done is the wiser approach.

Later. Glad I found an easy solution to the above problem as I would be so annoyed if someone else had pointed it out to me. I lay a thick pole on woven piece, I.e. between reed and breast beam, and push down hard on it thus slackening the warp beyond, then turn on. Doing this I can turn on successfully a few inches at a time. This puts no strain on apron and, importantly, can be done without assistance.

2 FEBRUARY

Knowing all possible problems are behind me I begin today with confidence and wonder how much can be woven in a hassle-free day. After the first turn on, done as above, I am dismayed to find the mid line of the hanging has shifted at least ½ inch to the left of my mid-breast beam mark. Turn the warp back and repeat the operation, watching the mid line carefully, and inexorably it moves to the left. The front stick is moving correctly but the woven piece shifts leftwards. Can see absolutely no obvious reason for this.

At last I decide it must be because the twist in the 2/ply steel yarn is making it act like a sort of screw and each thread is slewing to the left as it drags over the breast beam. This would only be noticeable with steel yarn because of its extreme solidity. The only way I can think of overcoming this is to make a revolving breast beam. In garden shed I locate a 3 inch thick rod (part of an old Polish loom, now stored in pieces). A friend in Nayland looks in his shed and finds some strips of metal which I bend to make brackets and screw these to the front of present breast beam. The two axles I have fitted into ends of the rod run in holes in these brackets. A few sentences; but all this took hours partly because I am always using wood, screws, nails that have been used at least once before.

I turn on over the roller and miraculously the hanging stays dead centre. Also I discover that I can turn on normally without yesterday’s manoeuvre because I have removed the drag over breast beam. Now I make a new wooden piece in front of the roller for me to lean on.

So how much can I weave in a day? Precisely nothing, to judge by today. When I tell myself this was really the last hurdle, a small voice says you might get the same effect when weaving passes over the knee bar. I ignore that voice pro tem.

3 FEBRUARY

Small voice was right. As I turn on, the weaving passing over knee bar shifts noticeably to the right. This is logical direction when you think about it. Obviously another roller is needed. Look around for one and see a aluminium scaffolding pole which the BBC left behind when they filmed the final part of ‘Craft of Weaver’ in my workshop. Plug its ends with pared down bobbin centres, make two more angle brackets, screw them to top of knee bar and fix roller axles in them. Before doing this I pull weaving back off cloth beam; as I rewind it I am relieved to see it goes on straight.

Weave in three rods today. The applying of cyanoacrylate to the few picks either side of these rods is not easy. I try using a 2 cc syringe but the drops come out of the needle unevenly; had a few bad squirts but as I am beginning with top of hanging these over-glued spots will not be seen from floor level. Would be so much easier if it could be put on with a brush, but any brush would set solid in the time it takes me to get from weaving in one rod to the next.

The exposed warp is finished so I unroll bobbins for the next run in. When trying to push a cross along one of these narrow warps, discover that it is only possible if threads are really slack, so just the opposite of what happens with normal threads

4 FEBRUARY

More or less a whole day’s weaving apart from answering letters to America. Start with a new stretch of warp and I end the day with the next stretch ready for tomorrow. So I probably can do about 4 or 5 rods per day which, makes one strip in 3 days. Am running stiff wrapping paper in with the hanging on cloth beam and hope I remember to put in a series of sticks about halfway through. It is winding onto cloth beam with satisfying accuracy though the long rods do bend visibly by the time they reach this beam; I think this happened with others I have made from linen and it did not matter in the end. As I wound on yesterday a single thread broke; it had been caught behind the heddles. Luckily a weaver’s knot does not slip with this slippery yarn.

I use a long stick shuttle when weaving in the short rods and a throwing shuttle when weaving in the long ones. But before every pick I slide a specially pointed warp stick into the shed to ensure its clear and leave it there as the weft goes across. The steel yarn is just on the border of being too thick to move easily in the rigid heddle’s dents, so the above procedure is necessary to avoid hang threads.

A great relief at end of day to see that warp length was correctly calculated.....at least its not too short and maybe the next one can be adjusted to reduce to minimum the wastage.

5 FEBRUARY

Only a few hours to work, because Asa Haggren, conservator from the Textile History Museum, Boras, Sweden came for the day with a friend and stayed the night. Put in one long rod and was glad of the rest to my back

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6 FEBRUARY

I finish the first strip. There is about 18 inches too much warp so I can make other warps one section of the mill shorter. Remove the excess warp carefully as it is in useable lengths (for samples, tablet weaving, even ply-splitting?). As I pull the hanging off the cloth beam onto a cardboard tube, I realise it is even heavier than I had foreseen. The idea that it would need some weight at the bottom edge to stretch it is obviously false. Leave a long fringe in case I knot the ends though the glued weaving should hold these ends secure. The glue shines a bit, so I may use the back as woven as the front. Want to hang at least one section of it to convince myself it all OK but it is going to need Jason’s muscles to hold it up while fixing it to some sky-hook.

Notice earlier in the day that the front stick was very slightly crooked on cloth beam; but this can be corrected by adjusting the length of the stretch rods which make it 3D.

7 FEBRUARY

Buy some angle brackets and fix to handrail of gallery. Tie the hanging to a thick metal rod by its warp ends. Then with J’s help put rod on brackets and lower the hanging. Two top sections hang free , the rest is rolled up on floor. Can see loose threads in several places. With difficulty put in 5 mm thick stretch rods to make it 3D; seems OK.

Tie rolled up piece at bottom so it is swinging free; this added weight straightens out most of the looseness. Difficult to imagine the whole thing as this is only one 18th of total area it will cover. Take it down and weigh it; about 9 kilos; so total weight will be 90kg. This of course includes the steel rods and so does not represent the weight of yarn which will be used. Send Mr Arai a fax saying how slowly things are going, to warn him I cannot finish it by the date he gave me.

9 FEBRUARY

(8th missed as giving PS talk to London Guild). I start on warp for second strip and do nearly ¾ of it in the day. I get so fed up with the way the yarn refuses to come off the metal bobbins that I wind some cones, a procedure which cuts my fingers until I wear thick gardening gloves, then the yarn begins to cut into them too. When I try to use these cones I find the steel wins yet again. Unless the yarn is pulled off at a constant rate (impossible when warping on a mill with the reversing of direction at top and bottom), it tends to slide down the side of the cone in loose loops which then catch under the cone and pull it over. So I decide to go back to using the metal bobbins and the consequential swearing.

I am using two inch wide rigid heddles so two bobbins provide warp for each of these. I make a slightly longer threading loop with finer guitar wire and this makes threading through the eyes a little easier. Try to evolve a method of handling the yarn in which for once the yarn’s weight works to my advantage; I make a small loop with left hand and aim it at the loop so it should just fall through...which it occasionally does.

10 FEBRUARY

I finish the warping and threading for strip 2, putting just 6 threads of the silver colour in to see how they showed up. Warping from the metal bobbins becomes increasingly oath-provoking. As the diameter of remaining yarn decreases, the thread sticks and will not pull off vertically. I find I have to hold a long bamboo in one hand and repeatedly poke whichever yarn is jammed, encouraging it to unwind.

Develop a better way of threading than above, so it goes more speedily. As usual scissors get blunt quickly and I have to sharpen them often on a rather feeble electric gadget. This makes them cut the steel yarn but strangely not the linen warp ends which I use for tying up the cross in each small warp.

I try wearing a nose mask as my sick-cow-sounding cough seems to coincide with my being exposed to cut ends of the yarn....and presumably some airborne micro-filaments of steel. The mask steams up my glasses and causes annoyance, but is probably a sensible precaution.

The 20 kilo extra of yarn arrives from Japan without any correspondence with Heathrow or Customs. But I can see what I already have will most likely be enough, so I may be involved in sending this 20 kilos back.

11 FEBRUARY

Due to visit to physiotherapist, I only start work after lunch and manage to weave in three rods. The crossovers are so much easier with the two-inch wide rigid heddles., but they do mean I cannot put the gaps for the stretch rods exactly where I want them. Hope this does not effect the result. Decide that I should use 5mm rods everywhere for safety; up till now have used 4mm for short rods, 5mm for long.

12 FEBRUARY

Only an hour or so at loom because of visit to V and A to see my textiles they have bought over the years and are willing to lend for my exhibition.

13 FEBRUARY

A whole day of weaving produces about 4 rods woven in. Find I need not push batten down to lower notch to get the down shed, which was the really hard thing to do, because I always pass the pointed stick across to verify shed in any case. This discovery immediately takes a lot of the ache out of working.

Go to motorcycle shop and buy anti-misting stuff to rub on glasses; this is so I can use the anti-dust mask which otherwise mists up my glasses in seconds. This is important as I seem to cough so much when handling the yarn.

Fax from Kamasaki saying he is coming with an other person on 22nd February; but is the other person Mr Arai or not? Wants me to arrange hotel for one night. No actual word from Arai himself since the shortage of yarn misunderstanding so I am a bit worried.

14 FEBRUARY

Correspondent from Japanese newspaper came plus weaver who took photos. Quite a long interview, so could hardly begin work until about 3 pm but managed to weave in last four rods of this second strip. Only problem was having to mend two threads broken during the turning on stage; knots are so difficult as the yarn has a will of its own, a bit like nylon. Shorter warp was exactly correct in length.

Taped four warp sticks together so that they would stay equidistant when rolled on with hanging. That plus paper seems to be working OK.

My feelings about the yarn come to the surface when I mistakenly tell the visitors that its colouring was the result of "hate treatment".

15 FEBRUARY

Cut off the second strip; no scissors really want to cut across 576 steel threads even if rewarded afterwards with a sharpening.

Save all the warp ends and begin to make third warp, using mainly the golden brown colour. This causes the by now routine swearings as threads catch on the flanges. Wind a cone of dark colour; find that dropping it is the worst possible thing to do as it jars the yarn and some coils come off the top, so have to rewind the whole thing.

In threading, the wire loop finally breaks so a dulcimer string is sacrificed to replace it. As I warp and thread, I begin to feel like a convict counting days to his release. I work out that the total number of threads is 5184 and by the end of the day I reach number 1152, with the third strip not yet fully warped.

Am beginning to tolerate the face mask, except for the itchiness of nose it stimulates. Reminds me strongly of operating and being unable to scratch my nose with sterilised gloves; even sometimes asking a nurse to give it a rub.

16 FEBRUARY

Warp and thread last 10 bobbins for third strip. Start weaving it and put in three rods. This strip uses mainly the golden brown steel yarn, but mixed with a little of the dark and a few threads of the bright steel yarn. No problems but the unavoidable slowness of work becomes irritating.

17 FEBRUARY

I manage to weave in 6 rods today, more or less half a complete hanging. One aspect of the work which always annoys me is the constant moving about of the weights. I take them off the bobbins in one position; I then move the warp on and the weights have to be shuffled and rolled across the floor for hanging on the bobbins in their new position. I remember we have an old children’s toy, a circular platform surrounded with an old car tire. It can be pushed around because it has four small wheels underneath. So I try loading weights onto this and shoving it around; I think it will save time.

Fax from Arai; has been in India and returned early because of illness. Says he is glad all problems solved. No mention of my ordering extra yarn which I had been imagining was keeping him silent.

18 FEBRUARY

I finish the third strip. No scissors are happy cutting all those threads at the end but the large Chinese ones are the best. Even they need occasional attention from a diamond-embedded sharpener.

Save warp ends. Unpack second parcel from Japan. Wind onto cones the remains of the dark colour yarn from first parcel. Cones do seem to be the best solution despite their drawbacks. Now looks as if the yarn in both parcels will be about sufficient.

Activator for glue runs out just as this strip is finished; but cheerful Phil Treby kindly delivers three more cans of the stuff to the door.

19 FEBRUARY

Because of going to Barbican to see Coper/Rie exhibition not much work done.

20 FEBRUARY

Warp making and threading all day. Wind more cones; find there is an optimum size to make them; if they are made larger the yarn just slides down in coils round the base of the cone, a circumstance as oath-provoking as the yarn snagging on sides of bobbins. Now looks as if I may have a whole bobbin left over of each colour.

21 -23 FEBRUARY

Interruptions slowing things up. On 22nd Nimori Kawazaki and Chiaki, a friendly interpreter, came , being met at Stanstead by J and E. Learnt quite a lot about the Cultural Centre from him. He came to it and found there was no budget for art works, so he looked through all the estimates of all departments involved and managed to ‘liberate’ several million yen for this purpose. He is really the artistic director, not Mr Arai. But being a textile city they wanted to get the ‘world’s best textile artists’ (I just report what he said) to provide these works and decided on Sheila Hicks, myself and Arai.

Arai has a position as adviser to Metalpha on the steel yarn. Nimori kept on repeating that my macrogauze is the very first big art work to employ it. It puts a heavy responsibility on me to make something to justify their choice. In Kiryu they have also encountered this sliding effect of steel cloth when warp turned is on...Their simple solution was to have both S- and Z-twist two-ply prepared and to use them end and end in the warp! (Later; learnt this was not so) Arai is now using the much finer yarn in clothing samples, lucky man.

The cost of the yarn is £200 per kilo which comes to about $150 per pound, tho’ Nimori does think the cost will come down. He suggests a good way of attaching the strips to the steel bar with bolts going between the starting rods every 10 cms. Also if I cannot test-hang it here, he is sure I could use the stage of the Centre’s own theatre.

Have a meal at the White Hart inn with them and J, E and Nippa. Tried unsuccessfully to put him off eating his black pudding, saying it was made from human transfusion blood past its use-by date. He photographs everything, even the black pudding, and uses a super-small video camera until battery runs out.

By end of 23rd have a quarter of strip 4 left to do.

24 FEBRUARY

25 FEBRUARY

Get rid of warp ends, finding I can with a little trouble save some double-length pieces. Working fairly hard manage to warp and thread the 576 ends for strip 5; this being the central one it feels like a watershed. Send a fax about our decisions to Mr Yamazaki unfortunately miscalling him Kamazaki; no wonder spell check wanted me to substitute kamakazi! Bought a new and better face-mask, which I can tolerate.

26 to 28 FEBRUARY

Weave the fifth strip, knot its ends and take out half of the old warp ends. So a strip in four days is quite possible.

Curving of long rods as they reach cloth beam is still an unsolved mystery; try putting in some extra warp sticks in the form of aluminium strips from old Venetian blind. Notice that the metal roller is not turning easily, must do something about it.

1 MARCH

Start 6th strip which is a light coloured one, using the "natural" steel yarn. Strengthen the roller brackets. Only make half the warp and thread it. Find that an incipient cold seems to have been cured by putting drops of an anti-congestant on my face mask; so it is being continually treated as I breathe.

2 - 5 MARCH

Weave strip 6 and finish its fringes at both ends. Another sneezing ‘cold’ and cough, which I presume is due to the steel fibre dust. So force myself to wear the mask almost all the time.

6 - 9 MARCH

Weave strip 7. As I beat the initial linen heading picks, the back cross bar comes free from the two G clamps and 32 bobbins plus their warps and weights land in a horrible muddle on the floor. Looks inextricable; but thanks to the non-stretchablity and strength of the steel yarn, it is not effected by this disaster and is fine once I resurrect it.

At one point at the rod cutting table, find I am just about to hacksaw my way through the wooden measuring ruler, instead of the rod. This repetition is obviously having its effect on my concentration.

10 MARCH onwards

Last two strips woven without much trouble. At one point a drop of cyanoacrylate fell onto the under layer of threads. These became fused into a solid mass of parallel steel yarns. I applied the release agent (intended for first aid with human disasters) and with difficulty prised them apart but they were then permanently tacky and looked hairy and non-shiny. So I had to replace them completely. Luckily it was near the end of strip 8 and so was fairly easy to do.

Jason took photos during the last strip using his big floodlights and correcting filter. But actually the ones taken without filter looked better. Took some shots myself of the very last pick with E’s camera. This was on 17th March, so it has taken 45 days to make. Of course that was just the weaving.

For many hours in following days, I knotted the ends, putting a spot of glue to keep the overhand knots from slipping. Also rolling up properly with paper. Seeing a strip laid out on floor really showed it’s impressive size, and also, I think, showed no inequalities of tension.

Also had to prepare 9 large tubes for the eventual packing off to Japan. This meant elongating some tubes with added sections, attached with strips of sheeting held in place with PVA glue. This makes each hanging almost exactly 10 kilos when packed.

Also had to cut 72 stretch rods and fork them at one end, ready for the test-hanging in Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich.

The amounts of unused steel yarn are 4 lbs dark, ¾ lb medium and 10 lbs light. I can understand why there is such a small amount of the medium, because it was mixed with both the dark and light. And I think the dark is less than the light because of initial mistakes with it. But its a shame the golden medium one is almost finished.

25 March

Rolled all strips up on full length paper; changed numbering of strips to more logical sequence.

26 March onwards

Took everything to Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich. When got there discovered that "everything" did not include the special vice I use for rod cutting. Searched in town for suitable replacement, but could only find a hopeless small one. So Jason went all the way back to Nayland to fetch mine. Meanwhile I rang Elizabeth asking her to look for mine and have it ready for Jason.

Drank coffee and thought about the job ahead. Looked carefully at the 8 metre long pole (an aluminium scaffolding pole with prolongations bolted on at each end) that the theatre had prepared for me. It was hauled up by three hemp ropes which went together to one belaying pin on a gallery above. So little chance of pulling them individually. Also the pole was really too flexible; it would have been nearly impossible to keep it horizontal and parallel to the floor, as it was gradually raised.

So when Jason returned told him this and he agreed it would be a waste of time to try and work with these disadvantages against us. Told Ian McMillan, the stage manager, and paid him about half what we had agreed for the whole operation; viz. £100. So packed everything back into car and went back to Nayland.

Wrote to Minori Yammazaki about this, suggesting ways of doing it all in Japan, but before I faxed this decided that we could at least make the rods for the upper half of the hanging here in workshop.

So each strip in turn was suspended from the 2 angle brackets on my gallery rail with a tape measure on either side. Then the two telescopic stretch rods were put in the top section, adjusted so that the reading on tape was the same at both sides - a really fiddly business as altering one side immediately altered the other- and the final rods cut to match these lengths. With these in place, the operation was repeated for second section down. Not possible to work on lower half of hanging as I have not the height in workshop. Rolled each strip up roughly when this was done, knowing this was not the final roll-up.

Eight strips were done like this using the old telescopic rods, which I realised would look very amateurish if used in Japan. So worked out simple metal type consisting of a brass tube (nicked from the nearly completed Shell Building when delivering a hanging there about 40 years ago!) with a threaded rod slid in both ends, their position adjustable with a nut and butterfly. Each threaded rod (called studding) had a forked end. Two of these took at least a day and a bit to make and worked perfectly. Cannot imagine why I have not thought of this idea before.

Over next few days, laid out each strip on living room floor and went over it carefully, looking for places were the weft was sagging a bit below a woven-in rod. Combed it back and dabbed with cyanoacrylate. I can see that it might have been better to have looped last weft at each rod around all the picks in a sort of blanket stitch and so controlled this sagging. Wound each strip tightly in its paper, someone pulling at other end. This is the final roll-up.

Began to cut more rods to be used for lower half of strips in Japan, each with a fork at one end only.

Final packing and labelling and invoice writing took many days ( I write this on 12th April, when it is at last finished). Used many metres of packing tape of various types, Stuck a Description of Contents in plastic envelope on each tube.

They will be picked up on Monday 14th April and should take 5 days to reach Japan and so be there when we arrive on 26th.

28th APRIL In Japan

In the Centre, Kiryu, find only one bracket to support the top bar is in position. Obvious difficulties with getting the 5 brackets level as the glass ceiling slopes above, so all measurements have to be made from the floor upwards.

I have been provided with a table to which a metal vice was attached with much drilling and hammering and bashing. All the 9 cylindrical parcels which I last saw in Nayland are there.

By midday the top bar was fixed; it was in two halves which met at the central bracket and with a lot of manoeuvring the bolts were put in and tightened.

While this was happening, each strip was unrolled and bolts pushed through the top edge (between the two woven-in rods) at the correct 10 cm intervals..using an unused bit of top bar as a guide. This made it much easier for Ohno eventually to fix the strip to the bar. Also Minori Yamazaki attached little black plastic pieces to the rods which might rub against the rough concrete wall, "in an earthquake" as he said in a matter of fact way.

29th APRIL

By end of this day the first strip, the left-hand one, was at last in position. The stretch rods Jason and I had measured in Nayland (for the top two repeats) were inserted and thank goodness it all worked. Absolute dead silence from all present as these were put in, except for the clicking of cameras and sound of Minori running around with his Sony VCR. Always a little gathering of onlookers, even though the Centre is not officially open yet. Then the telescopic rods were carefully adjusted by Ohno and handed to me so I could cut the stretch rods for the lower two repeats. Being the lightest strip it did not show much against the grey concrete.

30th APRIL

Work went much faster today and by its end 6 strips were up. Difference between the three colours of steel yarn is not as great as I had hoped. We nickname Ohno, Mr YoYo, because he is constantly going up and down. Decided to fix the top of each stretch rod to the woven-in rod with a twist of stainless steel wire; not visible from the ground but necessary for safety reasons.

Bottom edges of strips are level but each twists slightly. Try laying a long rod here to correct this. By the end of the day decide that something heavier is needed as there is also a tendency for the lowest threads to sag and not lie in neat straight lines. So Minori’s father who owns a metal works will supply a thin stainless steel strip to be bolted on to back of lower edges.

Steel yarn reflects the light so much that in some areas see brilliant rectangles alternating with dark ones. The top fixing bolts look quite decorative and a much better idea than my usual sewing.

As got dark Minori tried altering lights from opposite wall so they shone across onto the macrogauze. Gave very strong shadows which I did not like. He said by using several lights he could get good illumination without shadows.

Junichi Arai arrived late (his teaching day in Tokyo) and when he came in and saw the 6 strips, he began clapping and others joined in. He seemed very pleased, "a dream come true".

1st May

Must have got dates wrong in diary, thereby losing April 31st entirely. In any case when arrived at Centre, strip 7 was already going up, and by lunch time it was all finally done. More clapping; looked fine.

Long interview with Akiko Minosaki for Kiryu Times with Arai and Tatsuo of Metalpha sitting in. Latter explained the yarns origin; the steel micro filaments were first made for use in industrial filters. Yarn is now treated so the surface is sealed and it will not cause nose/chest effects. Also they are trying to develop a red colour. Gave out many stainless steel rings today, Arai, Chiaki (translator) and Tatsuo immediately wearing theirs’.

11th May was the official opening, which was started by a dramatic Kojo drummer and ended with last movement of Beethoven’s Choral symphony. In between many speeches by an array of dignitaries on the stage. Sheila Hicks’ huge stage curtain was well received and she was interviewed about it as part of the entertainment. Many photos about its making in her exhibition in the Centre’s gallery.

One of the architects came up to me on this day and said he liked my hanging best of all the art-objects in the Centre. A good note to end on.

Peter Collingwood 1997