Script for

Episode 137:

Talking Color with Deb Menz

Hi. Welcome to the Sheepspot podcast where we help inquisitive hand spinners like you make more yarns you love. I'm your host. Sasha Torres, I am a spinning teacher, recovering academic, and the founder of Sheepspot, where we leverage the power of online learning to help you become a more skillful, knowledgeable and versatile yarn maker. I'll help you create the yarns you envision while spinning your way to a less stressful and more creative life. Let's get started.

Hello there, beloved sheepspotter, I'm taking a little break from creating new episodes right now, but today I'm sharing a segment from my first spinning podcast, spin doctor, for your listening pleasure. In this episode from 2011 I interview colorist extraordinaire Deb Menz. Deb is the author of color in spinning, which is sadly out of print. It is an amazing book, and if you ever find a used copy of it, snatch it up. Deb taught me to dye wool, and there's a pretty direct line from the class I took with her in 2011 to sheep spot. I am forever in her debt, and I really hope that you enjoy this episode. I had a chance to sit down with Deb Menz for a few minutes after my class with her ended. Among our topics, how she assuages her students' color anxieties, talking about color, using food and music analogies, her decision to stop traveling to teach how well or not the spinning community supports its teachers and why art education is not a luxury. I recorded this in the classroom at the spinning loft while folks were coming and going. So you'll hear some background noise, including the famous spinning loft doorbells. Okay, okay, so, so here's my line, opening question, opening gambit, okay. Why are people so afraid of making color choices?

Art teachers, grade school art teachers. They tell you, they tell kids that there're too many rules. I was an art mom when my kids were little, and we almost got into a physical fight with the art teacher because of different projects and things that he said, and my children were strong willed children, and they would come home and say, Mom, he said that I can't use blue and green together because they don't go together. And so my retort was, well, just tell them they're analogous colors. It's a color relationship. It's all right. And she flunked that one. So my son, coming through three years later, thought that he was going to skip it as far as he was going to outsmart him, he was going to use black and white, and he told him, No, those aren't colors. You can't use that at all. So my son just chose not to do it at all.

Okay, so there we go, teachers, our teachers. Is there anything else you think?

I think our society makes people believe that you have to be a famous artist to be creative. And so our society in general makes the assumption everyone is uncreative, and only gives special snowflake status to a gifted few. And gifted is in quotation marks, right? It's whoever that particular art teacher that didn't know what an analogous color was choosing who he thought was the special snowflake, right?

So if you're not a special snowflake, and you're in say, someone isn't a special snowflake or not chosen as a special snowflake and is in your class, say your painted rovings class. How do you how do you help the timid ones start to make those choices about combining? Oh, sure, because I think that's the thing.

Oh, it's totally people out. It's confidence. It's not that they can't do it. They just don't think they can do it. And they're afraid. I don't know what they're afraid of, that what's going to happen you get something you don't like, but there's no color. God, that's going to come down and get you. And so it's just a matter of having confidence to use the colors. So I get people to use small amounts of color, small, small numbers of color, and we work with monochromatic. Then we get out. Analogous, which are a little wider wedge of the pie, and then we just work around the color wheel, and by that time, they know what color relationships are, and that's all it's about. There are no rights and wrongs. It's just what people find esthetically pleasing. So there's no rules,

none. Okay? Because I think maybe, maybe a casual glance at, say, color and spinning. And the the chapter on, on color schemes, you know, the at the beginning, the one, oh yeah, on color harmonies. On color harmonies, thank you. That that might make people think that they're rules.

All that is is guidelines that if you want a predictable result, you can use those harmonies. And those aren't rules. Those are just, if you want a certain kind of result, say, with complimentary colors you want to intensify the two hue families, so you pick the specific hue family to have that happen doesn't mean that's the only way you do it. A lot of my work isn't in color harmonies anymore. I embellish it. I might start with one, and then I keep going until it seems right to me. So that's like a starting off point.

Okay, okay. I think another thing, I mean, I've, had my own color anxieties, and I'm really just talking about myself. Shockingly, for people who have listened to the show before, because really all I do is talk about myself. And I think for me, I started out working in Polymer in Polymer Clay, yeah, and the big color person in in polymer clay is called Maggie Maggio. I don't know if you know her stuff, but I think she's a total genius, and she's great at teaching this stuff and and she's the thing that she said to me in a class that I took with her once, was that the first step is figuring out what you like. And I think, I suspect, that lots of people don't really like they might think, Oh, I have a favorite color, but they haven't thought, oh, like, I prefer complementary schemes to analogous schemes, or I prefer saturated to desaturated. So there's that element too about figuring out what your own preferences are in that way, I

think for Yeah, for spinning and for what we do, I think knowing what you don't like is just as important, because I think a lot of people say they don't like barber poles, but if you put a barber pole with 10 colors, it doesn't read as barber pole. It reads as dots of color. And a barber pole is basically a difference in value of two two colors, and the bigger the value difference, the more barber poles. And so by adding more hue families and adding more colors to the mix and deciding what kind of value contrast you like, that is really important, because what you see from a distance is the value contrast or not contrast. So you might like minor keys, which is just ways to describe values you should put together, or major keys, which uses a really wide value range, okay,

So explain that a little bit more because, and you can say hue because, okay, because, on, on my show, we talk about hues, we talk about hues, values and saturation. Okay, I told everybody that we're just gonna have to get on board for that little bit of talking about color theory at the beginning, because then we, I would have a way to describe, well,

it's just a language, right? It's just a language. And for me, Hugh goes with the whole wedge of the pie on a color wheel, right? So, it's like somebody's last name, so a hue family of green would be the last name, men's say, per se. And within there, there are kelly green, pine green, forest green, mint green. And so those would be a first name, so the description of the color within the hue, and so that's how I distinguish it. So, so that's, yeah, that's a good analogy. And so, you know, that's one of the few um, non food analogies I have. I love food and it always reminds me of something. So back, meanwhile, back to value. Um, all value is it has nothing to do with the color itself or a hue itself. It has to do with its relative lightness or darkness when compared to a black and white scale. So it's like looking at life through a black and white TV or or colors copying your life on a black and white copier. Okay, so, so you've taken out the hue of it, and when you see something that blends really well, that all of those grays kind of mush, mushed together. That means that all of those hues or colors were in the same hue, in the same value range, okay? And you would call that a minor minor key. And it's just like music. Minor keys might be really quiet, they might be in a real mood but, but they're very specific, uh, major keys use from very dark to very light. So it's like thinking of a big band and that you have this whole loud, raucous thing going on. And major keys, to me, are more like that, okay, that makes sense. And so I try to give it analogies that people can relate to

with music, with music, or food or something, or Yeah, or fam lives, yes. Okay, yeah, that sounds good. So, uh, so you're, you're not gonna, you're gonna stop teaching Deb Menz. You're sort of gonna start teaching, let's talk about that a little bit, because

people might be, well, they've heard rumors of that for quite some time, and I've threatened it and backed off and threatened and backed off, but I never had an alternate thing to do while I was at home, not teaching, and now I do so. So I will teach from my studio. I'll be glad to have people come see me in Wisconsin, but I think I'm putting my suitcase away unless I'm going to see my kids. And I have kids on both coasts, and so that's a major trip. And I like being home with my dogs and my cats and buzz, yeah,

I will just have taken the court the class this weekend, and seeing how much I am now looking and how much stuff to have brought with her. And it's, I mean, it's you're basically having to reconstruct your studio in somebody else's space every time. And the spaces, as we've talked about, can be pretty unpredictable in terms of size and facilities and quality of the electrical current and all that stuff, absolutely

and so it's just, you're not only teaching the two or three days at the workshop, but I usually have two or three weeks of prep before the workshop, and then that at the workshop, then traveling home and unpacking it all. So a three day workshop isn't just three days for me. It usually encompasses three to four weeks of ordering the fibers, it's making sure that the formulas are right for some classes, making sure that I have the right things, packaging them, and doing handouts. Because I tweak the handouts for each workshop, it might have a date from 10 years ago, but that just means that's when I started teaching that particular class, and I edit from there. So, so

when cutting out the travel, you think that that's but having people to the studio is probably going to make things

well, that means I can take a weekly class, say, yoga class, continuing education, and cooking class. It means for eight weeks, I might actually be able to go to all eight weeks, which, that's what I'm looking forward to, that I can get into a routine. And a friend of mine, Sarah Sweat, would call it her dailyness In life, right? And that's what I'm looking for. I would like to have a really, really boring daily life, which, you know, things come up, so it doesn't happen. So if you aim for that then, you know, I'm okay in the middle somewhere, exactly. And people can come to me, and that means they still have my evenings and my nights and stuff, and they can be at the studio after I'm gone during, you know, the evening. That's fine. Yeah,

I think it's amazing that you've been able to make as much work as you have given, you know, given that because, because for me, like for me in my writing life, for example, if I don't, if I don't have a really boring daily life, I don't, you can't very much done. I'm

always in crisis mode that I have a deadline had it has to get done. And so you work like crazy for a period of time, then you're burnout. You do nothing. If I get two or three pieces done a year, that's a lot. I had a solo show last year, and I worked night and day for four months. I mean, I was working 16 hour days, and in the middle, I did have one workshop that I had to do, that I took things and I worked in the evening, on the airplane in the airport, and I really am, don't want to do that anymore. I want to go play like everybody, like, you know, I want this to be my hobby. Sometimes, great. So, so the sweater that I've been spending four years knitting is, I'm going to wear it this year. This is it?

That sounds really exciting Are you? Did you spin this sweater? Oh, I sure did

I got stuff at different conferences, and I didn't have enough of any one thing, so, so I lined it all up. And have have, is it plied yarn, which is highly unusual for me. It's a two ply yarn and and. It's just a real quiet for me. Quiet, um, all cool colors with some bright accents and a cardigan sweater that I can wear all the time.

Excellent. So one thing that we've been that you and I have been sort of talking about fairly consistently this weekend is the effectiveness of the spinning community, if we can call it that, at supporting its artists and supporting the people who are really making supplying our souls yes with stuff, supplying our souls with stuff, yes and I wonder if you just want to maybe talk about that a little bit and kind of, I mean, I think most of my listeners, well, I think my listeners have a really broad range of spinning experience. Some of them have been spinning for years and years and years. Some of them have been spinning for, you know, less than six months okay, they are, I think they probably tend to be sort of in my demographic, but I also have a lot of younger listeners and a lot of older listeners. They're all over the world. And I wonder if maybe we could talk a little bit about how individual spinners can think about keeping the sort of ecosystem of spinning healthy, okay,

um, it's a complex system. We're a small pond. In the grand scheme of things, that out of hobbies, there are not huge numbers of spinners worldwide. So we're a small group of people that know each other pretty, pretty well, or have heard of each other. It's wonderful in this day and age to be able to work with the electronics as far as the internet and the different things that are there that it makes that small world come together and be even more close. But I think that in your community, it's really important, within your spinning group that you're working with locally, that you support the people that provide services for you that I was a shop owner at one point, and I think it's real important to it's real it's real important to patronize the people that help you out. Because I know I like to look at books first. I like to feel the equipment first, or feel the fibers, and if I can get it locally, that's my first rule of thumb. I know it's really convenient. At three in the morning if you can't sleep and you're wanting to buy fibers, or you think you've got to have it right then, okay, feed the urge. It's okay, but, but overall, remember that that person that stocks lots of fleeces in their garage or wheels or whatever, that you've got to keep them there, and you've got to help them, or they cannot afford to be there to support you. They're the people that are there that you can ask questions with. They're the people. And if you're not there, then you have to be satisfied with pictures on the internet and words, and that's not personal enough. We're a touchy feely group. You have to have eye to eye touchy feel, and it's, you can't lose that part of our spinning community. I think that's important, yeah.

Well, so how does that apply to teaching and the way that we treat our teachers?

How does it well, oh, you got me stumped on that. How do we treat our teachers? Well, um, you have to support your local teachers. You do absolutely. I mean, that's all part of the balance, um, and the people that do travel nationally, um, be kind to them. You know, we have donuts, yeah, make sure we have some. You know, yeah, bring us some food once in a while, you know, throw some caffeine. But no, it's you just have to be nice. We're humans too.

If you'd like it, they'd like it, it's okay. We have low expectations.

and I wish I want you to have be able to have higher Well, I don't feel like I need to be a diva. Are you kidding? No, no, although the crown is here and I could put it on, it's very smart. It's

a Miss America crown. I swear it is every six year old girl's dream, yeah,

well, I think you know, one of the things about going, I went to Madrona for the first time this year. Okay, I've taught there, and I actually ended up, Sally Melville was on my flight, so I ended up, we ended up taking a taxi together too, because we got it, you know, our flight was really late, and we got in, and we missed the shuttle and whatever. And we were both just tired and hungry and fed up, and we wanted to get cropped to our beds. And so we ended up splitting. AQ, which was great. And it was clear from the way Sally talked about Madrona in particular, and I had a class with JC Boggs, and from the way she talked about it, that Madrona teacher treats teachers pretty well. Oh, yeah, they do, yeah. And I have to say that made me feel really good as a person who was giving Madrona my money to take these classes, to know that you guys were being treated well, treated well. And I think that's something that you know that that people who take classes at retreats and stuff really need to be thinking and well,

it's, yeah, it's, it's the time that our fees are not necessarily just for those six hours that you're paying for, the downtime, the packing time, the everything else that goes in between. That that if you think of those daily fees as spreading out for those three weeks it took then that puts it in a totally different picture. And that I know that you know at Craft schools, that I understand they're in not for profit and under budget constraints, but not all schools pay a fair living wage. And it's that's, it's the same way probably in other industries, but I know that crafts are particularly vulnerable, that they assume that the P the women, and it's mostly women that teach the spinning classes are being supported by a spouse or a partner, and that we do this just for the fun of it. Well, yeah, we love what we do, but we also have mortgages to pay, right? And this isn't just fluff that we really do this very seriously and passionately, and a lot of us do it because we absolutely love it, love what we're doing, and want to spread the word. But, you know, that's all part of it. You still

got it. You still got it your head. And, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. It saddens me that's Well, my dad was an artist, and, you know, he was poor his whole life, and he died more. And it was because, you know, we live in a culture that, well, we don't value value artists,

that art programs all over the country are being cut because people don't think art is necessary, and art and kids is incredibly necessary, because they can learn numbers, they can learn the internet, they can learn how to read. But if they're not learn, if they don't learn how to think creatively, we're never going to have leaders in 20 years. Right? That? Art does that, music does that, and kids need to be able to think more than linearly, and if that's lost, we're as a country at home, are going to be losing more than just the art and the music. Will be losing a whole way of life, right,

right? Have you ever heard of Howard Gardner? He said, Okay, he's educated, okay? He's on the education faculty at Harvard. And okay, was the person who posited that there, that there are multiple kinds of intelligence. So there's, you know, there's verbal intelligence and there's mathematical intelligence, there's also musical and kinesthetic. And, you know, all he has, I think nine of them, okay. And, and my father, who was a sculptor, he was a stone carver, he actually went and did a master's degree in education at Harvard with Howard Gardner. And because Howard Gardner got really, really interested in arts education, okay? And the reason is that the arts touch on seven of those intelligences, it's an incredibly efficient way to teach people how to think, it is, and it may be the most efficient way to teach people how to think. And so that's the thing that they're that they're cutting,

yeah, it seems like, you know, doesn't seem logical, does it? No,

no, and I don't know, do you have anything else?

No, I just feel very lucky that, or very fortunate that I've been able to be in touch with so many adults that weren't in touch with that part of the themselves. And it is so much fun and so gratifying to see the A ha moment and know that they're going to go and do something different than they did before they met me and to me that that's it, and that's going to be the hardest part for me to leave, right? So, you know, I want, don't want to teach. I just can't be everywhere for everybody all the time at once. Yeah, yeah. I finally realized that,

well, I think that's good for you, maybe bad for us, but, but I think there might be a little spin doctor trip to the dead men's studio sometime in the spring. I think be saying more about that later. Um, thank you so much. Deb, it's I had a great. Eight time this weekend, I learned so much, and I'm going to be dying my actual ass off. Yay. I will have no ass because

of the ass ones. Okay? I want to see those colors. Okay.

Thank you so much.

You are so welcome.

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