Carol Mania

Biography

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Carol speaks with Village Voices editor, John Harkey.

I grew up in the Auburn section of Cranston. When I was 12, my parents bought a little 20-by-20-foot shack on Great Island. My father fell through the front porch on the day he took us to see it. It was unheated, no insulation, just the stud work. I spent my summers there, growing up and loving every minute of it.

I went to the University of Rhode Island and graduated in ’76 with a BA in Early Childhood Education. I began working at St. Aloysius Home in Greenville with boys who were abused, neglected, and delinquent, the majority of whom would work their way through the system to Sockanosset School for Boys in Cranston, the training school. And from there, to the ACI. Or, if they were lucky, they got placements in group homes like the Ocean Tides, a facility run by the Christian Brothers. These were kids who came from horrible, horrible backgrounds who had no good home to go back to. They were placed by the court in the hopes that there was some path for them to take before they ended up living an entire life in incarceration. I was there for 2 years, then moved to New Hampshire to teach and work with autistic children.

I moved back to RI in 1979, married, and started a family in 1982. My husband and I bought 35 acres in South Kingston, 1000 feet off the road, built a log cabin, and had a little homestead. I had sheep, I had chickens, I had angora rabbits there, and I've always been a gardener. That's where I started spinning and weaving, something I'd always wanted to do. It wasn't yet a business operation by any means. I was offered an antique loom, so I started hawking my wares in order to purchase it. At that point, shops were being built on the waterfront at Narragansett Pier, and I would just go store to store, taking orders. So I put together $500 and got the loom. That's pretty much how my weaving became a business, Lodestar Wovens.

Life took its twists and turns, ending an eight-year marriage. I became a single mom when the kids were three and five. I was working three jobs, including my weaving, which made the weaving very important. One Friday night, I said to the kids, Where do you want to go? The roller-skating rink! – where all the Narragansett kids grew up. I fell in love with it, and they offered me a job, which I took so the kids and I could be together as I worked. I ended up as an assistant manager, teaching beginners and children to skate. I worked there for 10 years, till I broke my fibula and tibia at home. I tripped over my loom.

I would do anything, anything to keep the kids fed. My plan had always been to go for a Master's degree in special ed, but I never got that far because I couldn't get financial aid. So I started mixing bar and waiting tables, and that's how I paid the mortgage.

At the rink, I met a man who was very involved with Habitat for Humanity. We began dating. Three and a half years later, we decided to get married and build another house. Then, I didn't have the same financial needs, so I was able to start working at a garden center and ran the greenhouse for many years. This was something I'd always wanted to do but couldn't afford while raising the kids and keeping a mortgage. My life has always been geared toward loving and working the Earth. I had a wonderful set of clients. One who owned a turf farm had horses. It was just wonderful.

My husband was a boater, a builder, and a real Back-to-the-Earth kind of guy. We had 10 acres by the water, and over the years we had many sailboats. We’d go on two-week vacations up to Gay Head, to the Vineyard, and down to Long Island — all in an 18-foot Herreshoff catboat. I wanted a boat I could lie down in. So our boating changed. We bought a recreational trawler, kind of like an RV on the water. They don't move very fast.

A lot of people travel up and down the East Coast every year. I'm a history buff, so it was fascinating to go through Gullah territory, the Sea Islands off South Carolina. There's also a group of people called the Great Loopers, who cruise up the St. Lawrence and down the Mississippi depending on the time of year. So that became our ultimate plan. Eventually, we parked the boat in the Keys.

In the midst of our cruising season, we would come home to Rhode Island for me to do the Foundry Craft Show in Pawtucket – 38 years with the Foundry, oh my goodness, yeah. All my wovens and my clothing line were sold there.

It's so funny. People say, ‘You've had such an amazing life.’ But no, it’s just my life.

I’ve lived in Jamestown for 2 1/2 years and love this community. When I moved here, my intention was to take my place as a volunteer in Jamestown Village. But medical circumstances have put me on hold for a while.

Artist Statement

In my artwork, I always seek to capture whatever aspects of the natural world that I can. Although weaving and the fiber arts are my primary loves, I found a new interest in the art of coiled pine-needle basketry. It combines both the natural world, my fascination with history, and a deepening respect for native cultures.

While traveling down the Intracoastal Waterway on our boat for the last few winters, I was thrilled to finally see and handle the famous Gullah Sweetgrass baskets in South Carolina. Once arrived in the Florida Keys, I met a very talented and generous group of “coilers” who taught me how the technique was applied so far south. Coiling is a Seminole Indian tradition, but is now practiced by many people in the boating community. Not only did those folks teach me to coil, but they even directed me to places where I could gather my own Florida Long Leaf pine needles.

Once they are dried, they are then put through a softening bath followed by a dye bath. Coiling can then begin.

A History of Pine Needle Basketry

The Practice

My creative friends constitute an informal community where we help each other on a pay-it-forward basis. For instance, someone sent me a bushel of pine needles: “Pay it forward,” she said. Someone here on Jamestown Island who dyes yarn was looking for Lettuce Lichen. So I went on three hikes and filled a grocery bag, which, paying it forward, I passed on to her. A woman in our Facebook group created a page for us with all these links to YouTube tutorials. And so, in appreciation, I made a basket of the stitches she had led us to — a working ‘sampler’ to be shared with the coiling community. More pay-it-forward.

What I'm coiling with at any point depends on what needles I gather, and if they were in the sun or buried under something. Dry in the sun, and the needles turn different shades of brown. If they dry it in the shade, they dry mint green.

The natural color of the needle affects how a dye color will react: brown needles dye to rust or red, green dye to shades of turquoise. You anticipate how a dye will react, then hope for the best. It’s a form of play.

I collect objects for the basket centers.

I'm not doing basketry for the sales. I coil because I love it; sales follow in importance. But I must sell because I'm always making more, and I have so many.

Long before I started creating baskets, I began an exploration of fibers, using a spinning wheel and loom.

There are many dolls around my house. Most of them come from friends. I did a round-robin doll swap with women from Nova Scotia. There were six of us in the group, each of whom held a doll for a month, added something to it, then sent it on.