Q&A with broom maker Cynthia Main
How did you begin making brooms?
In 2013 I had left my job running a salvage building materials wood shop at the ReBuilding Exchange in Chicago Illinois to spend a year at Tillers International: a traditional rural skills school near Kalamazoo, Michigan. There, I was able to dive into more traditional woodworking and blacksmithing (as well as horse-powered farming!) and take a class with the very talented Darold Francis. It was definitely love at first weave. My process has evolved quite a bit from there, but I was really into the craft from the first broom!
Did you begin with a different medium and move to broom-making?
Well- I finished high school pretty disillusioned with the education process, as I knew it- I think I was a strong kinesthetic learner, and didn’t really know what that was. So after hitchhiking around the country for 6 months (I love you, mom!) I took my first job as a carpenter, and took a few classes at N.C. State towards becoming a shop teacher. From there, for the last 20 years, it had been an array of maker-jobs: metal fabricator, set builder, gardening, farming, wood working. I feel so lucky to have gotten to learn with my body and being for so long. I used to think I would one day be a good maker- some of the fun of learning for so long involves realizing the growth curve of understanding to me now feels endless, and the beginners mind sticks around always.
I noticed your spoons are called “talismans.” Can you talk a bit about the importance of ritual in your work and our culture?
Oooh. Good question. There’s so many ways to talk about this, but in this moment, ritual feels like a bit of honoring the natural place in the animal kingdom, and in the world- where habits and ways are ruled by the natural cycles, seen and unseen. “Ritual” in that sense repeats this pattern in an acknowledged way- for me allowing some of the honoring and bend to natural forces that feels like part of being alive.
As for in my work- there is also the aspect of daily making: the knife goes here on the table, the broomcorn stacks in this way- I think the honored repetition comes out in my craft, mini- cycles mirroring the whole, away from the consternations of the mind, and simply showing up as a byproduct of being.
“Each flower in its season, whichever birds and animals are migrating through, the mushrooms in their cycles, ripe fruits, wind patterns. I could go on and on about how inspired I feel by the world around me”
Who are your inspirations? People? Plants? Other craft processes?
Oh I am such a lover! Each flower in its season, whichever birds and animals are migrating through, the mushrooms in their cycles, ripe fruits, wind patterns. I could go on and on about how inspired I feel by the world around me. I feel lucky to be alive, and on good days, I act like it.
As for people, I feel a strong kinship with other folks exploring that same edge of mystery: from the (historical) Blau Riders, Bauhaus, Black Mountain, and then there are all the mystics, from Thomas Merton to Theresa of Avila- any folks really expressing the love and awe of it all- a good deep drink. Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry all the classics I guess. As for modern makers, I think Aaron at Factured Goods is on fire, Love the work of my friend and sometimes collaborator Casey Gunschel, and most of the folks I get to interact with at shows are really on their game. The maker scene right now is so full of jaw dropping makers: Emmet Van Driesche, Spoon and Hook, Held Ceramics, Mayanan, uzmati ceramics, Bodhi Basics. I could list hundreds so let me know if you want that list!!
Is there a meditative aspect to your work - in the making and the sweeping?
It is undeniable. I am a meditator as well, although as I’m saying this, I realize how my practice has waned! My craft is another way for me to practice that gentle return to presence. I do the same thing hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of times. When does it fall into the category like walking, like breathing. (ooh, and what is meditation….that leads to another rabbit hole, doesn’t it?
Can you talk a bit about the way broom imagery has been used in regards to women in the past? Do you think about reclaiming brooms at all in your work?
Well, witches, what can I say? A symbol of hearth and home, an applicator for psychedelic herbs, the classic witches main go to-( with that cat too!)
I think being who I am is a reclaiming: I love this craft, it called me like craft often does - I just met the other broom maker Mary Beth Gramore from North House folk school who had so many similarities to me it was funny. So I think broom making may have claimed me, and allowing that to happen feels like a reclamation of sorts. The best I can do is show up every day and practice.
What specific traditions of broom-making are you particularly moved by?
Appalachia! But if anyone wants to send me to Japan to learn their style of broom making, I’d be grateful!
How does your environment influence your work?
I used to work in a much bigger, dustier, louder shop, and at times I still do- but I do think the quietness of my process (it is totally non-electric for the brooms) allows me to stay present to some of the more delicate aspects of the work. It also helps me focus.
And the hills around Berea are so lovely! It is Western Appalachia, and a peace that it gives me I am sure influences the work I do!
How does broom-making relate to other styles of weaving?
Well, this is my first foray into weaving, so I don’t fully know. I’ve always identified as a woodworker, and it has been a bit of an identity shift to be a weaver. But I see some of the basics in the work of weavers I appreciate: over, under, repetition, and attention.
