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SACRAMENTO, Calif.
—
Ann Robinson
will always be an educator at heart.
Last
summer, however, she had to ask herself a question all
too familiar to people with long careers that come to an
unexpected end: "Now what am I going to do?"
Robinson,
64, became a statistic of the teaching community. After
40-plus years teaching linguistics on campuses including
the
University of Wisconsin
and
Stanford
, she found herself without a classroom — a victim of
budget cuts at the
University of California, Davis
, and
Sacramento City College
.
"I'm
originally from
Berkeley
, with two grandfathers who served on the faculty,"
she says. "There's this built-in institutional
loyalty. Teaching was my life."
A year
later, Robinson answered her own question by
rediscovering her "artsy" side — and a
latent love for dyeing and working with hand-woven
textiles.
In a
twist, the artist's scarves and wall hangings — all
made from natural fibers such as cotton, silk, bamboo,
even soy — have become teaching tools.
"When
the economy didn't rebound after the first of the year,
I started volunteer work at the
Women's Wisdom Project
in (
Sacramento's
)
Oak Park
," Robinson says.
The
program, offered through the
Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services
, offers free classes to women to bolster their
self-esteem.
Robinson
had the teaching skills, and the program didn't have a
weaving class. In May, the teacher-turned-artist held
her first weekly class at Women's Wisdom; the number of
students varies, with 10 to 12 on average. (She now
teaches two days a week.)
"I'm
really offering the basics because I'm still learning
myself," Robinson says. "And I like that I'm
helping women who've been shattered by poverty or abuse,
working with them through the medium of art to get them
feeling good and confident and back on their feet.
"That's
my driving force."
Robinson
says the women in her classes have created small woven
squares (20 total). The squares were sewn onto three
1-by-6-foot panels to create one piece that's 3 1/2-by-6
feet. The artwork will be shown
Nov. 14-15
at the
Sacramento Center for Textile Arts
exhibit at the Shepard Garden & Arts Center in
McKinley Park
.
Helen Plenert
is program manager for the
Women's Wisdom Project
. She says volunteers like Robinson bring something
special to the women who come to the center.
"Some
are sculptors or painters. Ann is the first to teach
weaving," Plenert says. "Helping others
through art is the goal we share."
Patricia Bechtold
, a life coach and personal counselor with her own
Sacramento
business, Bechtold LifeWork Strategies, says women like
Robinson are having to expand their definition of
"career."
"Career
represents progress in life," she says, "and
it's also about what a person can control."
Bechtold
applauds Robinson for allowing herself to do a variety
of things that increase her satisfaction and sense of
meaning.
"The
industry she was in might have changed," she adds,
but Robinson "still identifies herself as both an
artist and a teacher."
In
addition to teaching the classes, Robinson continues to
be her own work in progress.
As an
artist, Robinson spends more than 20 hours a week at
home with her three looms. Her raw material, including
Tencel (which she calls the "green fiber of the
21st century"), comes from suppliers in
the United States
and
Canada
.
Each
scarf is one of a kind. The cotton versions are the
least expensive to make and sell (
$145 to $150
); all silk is the high end (pushing
$200
).
Felicia Strati
, owner of
Felicia Strati Boutique
in midtown
Sacramento
, has featured and sold Robinson's scarves and says
they're a nice complement to the clothing lines she
carries.
"What
I like about her scarves is that they're hand-dyed and
hand-woven. You don't find this personal craftsmanship
anywhere. It's a form of art." Strati says.
Robinson,
who also is a cancer survivor, says she has that "
Peace Corps
kind of mentality."
"It
sounds Pollyanna-ish, but I believe in community service
and helping others. Art is a good way to express
that."
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