Ring, ring. Your creative side is calling, and Marianne Fairbanks’s pocket-sized Hello! Loom could be the answer.
Fairbanks, an associate professor of design studies in the UW School of Human Ecology, an Audrey Rothermel Bascom Professor, and a Kohl’s Center Innovation Faculty Fellow, originally developed her portable loom for a social practice project called the Weaving Lab. She wanted to make the art form as accessible as knitting or crocheting, and she hoped to remind participants how vital weaving and textiles are to everyday life.
The ease of handling an iPhone inspired the scale and shape of her design. “I wanted to replace how much we look at our phones with the creative practice of weaving with a pocketable loom.” Erica Hess ’02, MFA’18, Fairbanks’s former graduate student and now business partner, later came on board and helped refine the design and identity of Hello! Loom.
But it’s not just the practicality and accessibility of a cell phone that the loom mimics, Fairbanks says. “There’s embedded meaning in the ways that we weave,” she explains. “The Hello! Loom is both pointing toward the phone and the scale of the object, but also [the fact] that weaving has a lot of meaning and inherent communication within the intersection of threads.”
Hello! Loom launched in 2019, and Fairbanks has since obtained two design patents. The looms, all of which are laser cut in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, still call to mind a cell phone, but the website now offers sizes ranging from mini to mega. You’ll also find video tutorials and step-by-step instructions for first-time weavers. Below, Fairbanks shares a few more tips to get started.
Get Creative
“I’m hoping [customers] find pleasure in the process. For better or for worse, as a business owner, I am not often selling an outcome,” Fairbanks says. “I’m really excited about someone taking the time to learn the process and explore on the tool as a sampling place or as a platform to try new things.”
Slow Down
“[Weaving] forces us to slow down in a way that I love. I always think it’s funny, the idea of replacing this action of scrolling with using your hands to pass threads over and under each other.
We all can accept that there’s great value in physical activities that engage your hands. I want more people to have moments to slow down and be reflective.”
Appreciate Beauty
“One of the reasons [the loom] comes with a stand is because I want someone to finish it and put it on display. Like, ‘Here it is, it’s done.’ It’s already framed. It’s ready for you to look at and appreciate it. A lot of people say, ‘Well, what is it? Is it a rug? Is it a coaster? Is it a bookmark?’ It could be any of those things, but is it enough as it is? And could you appreciate it for being this swatch of a textile that we look at? It sits on your desk; it reminds you of how much fun you had weaving it or your exploration of color, pattern, and texture that day.”
