Weaver finds satisfaction giving away creations

This is the third in a series about people finding or rediscovering creative pursuits later in life. The reporting project is funded by a grant from the Alaska Center for Excellence in Journalism. If you have a suggestion of a person who has explored their artistic or creative impulses upon retirement or when other life demands lessened, email editor@seniorvoicealaska.com.

A couple of tragedies have bracketed Laurie Murdock's craft of weaving, but she keeps going with a sense of humor despite it all.

Laurie first became interested in weaving when a close friend and neighbor had breast cancer.

The friend had a table weaving loom, and Laurie became interested in it.

Her friend was selling off a lot of her possessions. Laurie asked if she could buy her loom. "I was so brazen to even ask this of her."

But her friend said no, that she hoped weaving would help with her recovery. A few months later, the friend knew she wasn't going to overcome cancer. But she told Laurie she had sold the loom to someone else.

"I took it like a woman," Laurie said, characteristically dry.

On Christmas morning more than 30 years ago, Laurie's husband Rod came tromping across the street with the loom, books and supplies.

In large part, Laurie's second act as a weaver is a tribute to her friend.

"Weaving was something that just fascinated me," she said. "The loom-it came with all kinds of books, a bunch of material. There was a book there by Deborah Chandler, and I worked my way through all the pages."

She and another friend started weaving together, essentially teaching themselves out of the books Laurie had received secondhand.

Laurie, who grew up in New Hampshire, had had some exposure to needlecrafts. "4H was a thing," she said, by way of explanation.

Laurie knew how to knit and she knew about yarn. But she had never woven anything until the early 1990s.

Kodiak-an ideal place for weaving

Laurie is a longtime employee of Senior Citizens of Kodiak, Inc. She started out as an executive assistant.

"It will be 20 years next year," she said.

But it's more complicated than that. She retired a few years ago. Then her husband died in a plane crash in Old Harbor.

"My retirement was maybe four months long," Laurie said. "I couldn't see myself sitting around."

She returned to the senior center. She is a certified Medicare counselor and a "project specialist."

That just means if the toilet is clogged, the question to her is "Why don't you unplug it?"

She's kidding, of course. But she is involved in a number of activities at Senior Citizens of Kodiak, where she spends most mornings.

When she's not working, she is often working at her loom. As her artistry developed, she put aside her late friend's table loom and got a floor loom, also secondhand. She makes blankets, shawls, towels, and other items for friends, family, or to give away. Anything that is square or rectangular, she quips.

Laurie got to Alaska in the typical fashion. She joined the Air Force and asked for warm-weather postings. Instead, she and her husband wound up in Anchorage. It was there that she studied as a legal secretary at the University of Alaska Anchorage. The couple moved with their two small children to Kodiak in 1989 for Rod's work.

Kodiak has turned out to be conducive to her weaving.

"It's just the fact the winters are long. We get a lot of rain. It's a 'good in the house' kind of deal," she said.

Projects small and large

Laurie has discovered a few truths about her craft.

"It's much more fun, much more fulfilling, to donate your work."

She has made many project for friends and family and for local organizations.

Early on, she made a few projects she sold, such as chenille scarves. But if they unraveled, she didn't want to be on the hook to repair them.

"I don't like to sell my items," she explained. "I feel that there is too much pressure. I don't need the pressure."

Now, she mostly gives away or trades her work in return for others' art.

One of her favorite projects is called the "Kodiak Colors" throw, and the pattern is featured on the Handwoven magazine's website: https://handwovenmagazine.com/library/QM50INYkSU6pN-SCE1-c0w

"It starts out with the green of the sea, the gray of the cliffs, the magenta of the fields, the spruce of the trees and the azure of the sky," she said.

One of the blankets she made on this pattern is destined to be a wedding present for a couple.

Another one is going to be raffled off in July to raise money for the Fort Abercrombie State Historic Park in Kodiak.

"I'm really proud of that," she said. "I'm glad I have the resources in my life that I can donate to my favorite organizations," she said.

A project borne of love

Recently, Laurie has had her hands busy making quilts out of the Pendleton shirts her husband collected. She insists she is not a quilter, that she makes fabric.

"I could feel his spirit," she said about her late husband when she started on the quilts. "The force was not happy when I started cutting up the shirts. He was in the beyond saying, 'What are you doing?'"

But she knew she couldn't just sell them or give them away. Now, she's working on a second quilt made of the Pendleton shirts for her daughter.

In July, it will be three years since Rod was killed.

"He and I were really good friends," she said. "He left me in a good place. I'm a pretty resilient kind of person."