Change looms: Marshfield School of Weaving finds a new home in Orange County

Over the past 50 years, a Marshfield barn located two dirt roads off Route 2 has quietly served as the entire country’s hub for a unique weaving practice that dates back over a thousand years.

Despite its out-of-the-way location, the Marshfield School of Weaving , which uses the rare horizontal treadle loom , is experiencing a surge in popularity. According to Director Justin Squizzero, around 200 students from more than 30 states and four countries attended at least one of its weeklong classes last year — learning to weave on the school’s collection of antique looms — and classes this summer had a waitlist.

“There’s this connection to the past that is a really powerful and important part of what we do,” Squizzero said in a recent interview. “But we’re not re-enacting something from the past. … We’re still doing the same craft in the present, the same way it’s always been practiced.”

As it adjusts to an increase in demand for its services, the school is also navigating other major changes. It became a nonprofit in early 2023, and its second-ever director, Kate Smith, retired at the end of that year. Then, in March, newly promoted Squizzero learned the school’s landlord would not be renewing the lease of its barn, leaving the school six months to find a new home.

After scrambling to find a new spot, the school has announced that it will relocate in September from its namesake town to a former chapel in Newbury, beginning the next phase in the evolution of an organization that brings the past into the present.

The first phase of the Marshfield School of Weaving began with Norman Kennedy, who was born in Scotland and traveled his home country learning from local weavers. He served as the master weaver at Colonial Williamsburg — the country’s largest living history museum — before founding the school in Marshfield in 1975 with the support of benefactor Virginia Stranahan.

Kennedy, who would later be named a national heritage fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts , ran the school until 1992, when it closed for a period of time. The 90-year-old has life tenancy at the Marshfield property’s farmhouse.

Smith learned to weave from Kennedy and served as his apprentice until the school’s closure. At that point, she opened a studio nearby and continued to teach students on a small scale. In 2007, she reopened the Marshfield School of Weaving and directed it through the end of last year.

Squizzero, 36, originally learned to work with wool from his grandmother , eventually rearranging his teenage bedroom in Rhode Island to fit an old loom. In his early 20s, he spent time learning from Smith and Kennedy, eventually starting to work with Smith and teach at the school in 2014 before moving to Vermont in 2016.

For Squizzero, a continued draw to this work is the loom itself — a relatively simple machine used to manipulate yarn in different ways to create an interlaced structure. The ones used at the Marshfield school date back to the Colonial era. The same general type of loom has been used for more than a thousand years in Britain after originally being brought from China.

“There’s a reason that people have been working this way for a thousand years,” he said. “It’s incredibly efficient, and a lot of people have spent a lot of time thinking about how to make it work efficiently and effectively.”

The looms, he continued, are “really, really good at what they do.”

However, according to Squizzero, the techniques used on the horizontal treadle loom were either largely ignored or unknown during the hand-weaving revival of the early 20th century , which resulted in contemporary weaving classes that use other types of looms. He doesn’t know of another school in the U.S. that teaches the techniques used at the Marshfield School of Weaving.

The school began to undergo a big transition in 2021, when Smith started looking toward retirement from her director role. Squizzero decided to revamp the school’s whole structure.

Now, instead of one-on-one classes, the school offers group classes that have been steadily growing and now serve up to eight students at a time. Whereas a decade ago, the school catered to mostly locals — around 50 a year, Squizzero estimated — it has begun attracting students from farther afield.

“The culture has really shifted, I think, because of that community aspect that gets built around what we do when you’ve got a big group,” said Squizzero, adding that when he instructs a class he thinks of himself more as a party planner, facilitating the class’ experience.

“It’s just great to see all those people interacting together: the conversations that happen during lunch or while they’re working on their project, the college student getting advice from the retired mother of four who has grandkids,” he said. “So much more than just weaving is happening.”

Squizzero has also resurrected a class from the school’s early days: a monthlong intensive where students create entirely from scratch, starting with sheep wool and finishing with a fully handspun wool blanket.

However, the school’s carefully crafted plans were turned upside down when the school’s lease wasn’t renewed. While Squizzero said there are no hard feelings, finding another large space to house the school’s operations and collection of early American textile tools was a tall order — not to mention the sentimental value of losing the location that changed many weavers’ lives, including Squizzero’s.

It was also an opportunity. The longtime barn had accessibility issues and no way to expand. It was hard to access via public transportation, and its director had been commuting 50 minutes each way from his home in Newbury.

Less than two months after learning they needed to move, school leaders managed to find a new locale. One of Squizzero’s neighbors connected him to the Newbury Women’s Club, which has been in charge of the unoccupied historic former Methodist chapel on the town’s common since the 1960s. It was a perfect fit.

Not only will the new building cut down significantly on Squizzero’s commute, but it is also right by public transit and the main floor is accessible by ramp.

“What looked like a dire situation just a few weeks ago has turned into the greatest display of community support imaginable,” Squizzero said in a statement announcing the move. “The people in town are as eager to welcome the school as we are to bring our students here. With this move, we’re able to plan new programs that we never dreamed were possible before, and I’m confident that this is the first step in ensuring a bright and sustainable future for the school.”

That said, there are a few drawbacks. No heating and cooling in the new location means programs will only be scheduled from May through October. Additionally, more than half of the main floor is sloped (originally to make the church pews at different levels) — a quirk Squizzero is still trying to solve.

Approximately one week in mid-September is set aside for the move, to minimize class disruptions. While Squizzero has faith in the school’s many volunteers and supporters, he said it’s no accident that the first class the school will hold in the Newbury location will teach students the mechanics of how looms work — including setting them up.

As for the school’s name? For now, at least, Squizzero said it will continue to be called the Marshfield School of Weaving.

Despite all the shifts happening at the school, Squizzero emphasized that the one thing is staying the same. The school will continue to preserve the longstanding tradition of working on the horizontal treadle loom — something people have deemed useful for thousands of years.

“I think of us as being incredibly privileged to have the opportunity to engage with this thing that people before us thought was worthy of maintaining,” he said.

And this, Squizzero said, is the key to the school’s success.

“So like, we look old-timey, but we’re actually very, very current,” he said. “I think that’s what brings people to us.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Change looms: Marshfield School of Weaving finds a new home in Orange County .