Weaving life, with Nadine Marchal

🧶In this episode, I speak with weaver extraordinaire Nadine Marchal about her creative process, her relationship with thread, how she weaves music into her pieces and how she connects to the thread of life within herself and the world.

To see Hilos and listen to Manuel Rangel's music composed around its creation, you can watch this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rshoQl9VC0Y

To see Nadine's latest piece, Reset le rêve (Reset the dream) you can see it in its natural habitat here: https://youtu.be/E3Q2oQMrHAY

To see Nadine weaving with air and water, as well as all her beautiful pieces, you can follow her on Instagram @nadine_marchal or go to her website https://www.nadine-marchal.com/#

Nadine's book recommendation:
The Dalai Lama's cat : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15805413-the-dalai-lama-s-cat

Get notified when the Silken Mirror membership opens in 2023 : http://eepurl.com/dxzCk9

Follow us on Instagram @moonlitpathchannel

This podcast is hosted by Laure Porché: http://laureporche.com. You can follow me on Instagram @laureporche
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Transcript

[00:00:00] Laure: Welcome everyone. Today I am so delighted to welcome Nadine Marchal, who is a wonderful, wonderful weaving artist, as well as an artistic director and a visionary for the future of textile and the world. Hi, Nadine. 

[00:00:21] Nadine: Hi, Laure. Well, I mean, hi everybody too, because some people are listening I guess. So thank you for for coming here first because it's a long way for you so I really appreciate that. And it's nice just to, to see people and talk and I'm happy.

[00:00:40] Laure: Thank you so much. Yeah. It's my first in-person interview because Nadine lives in France and so I drove all the way to her beautiful workshop that is also a theater.

[00:00:51] Mm-hmm. That in itself is just amazing. And now we are sitting in front of one another across my big microphone to have this conversation. 

[00:01:02] Nadine: But I can see you. 

[00:01:02] Laure: Yes, I know. I can see you too! So let's start with my favorite question. My first question, which is what is your favorite story or one of your favorite stories and how did it help you in your life? Or, and what do you think it says about who you are? 

[00:01:23] Nadine: Well, this is pretty difficult because I have memories of beautiful stories in my life, you know, and it's hard to pick up one, just because each one is an important step, you know. And if you see it today it's linked. And so in fact, there are not many stories, but just one at the end. But maybe I would choose a book or it's about three books. When did I read that three years ago? I would say that, you know, and in French, it's Le chat du Dalaï Lama. 

[00:02:12] Laure: Nice.

[00:02:15] Nadine: So the Dalaï Lama's cat. Yeah, I would say that. And why did I pick up that? Because first beautiful, beautiful books. I like the writing. I like everything about it. But maybe what I like the most is the wisdom that is in it. The path to go, to achieve that wisdom too. And I love animals. And in fact, when you read this book, what it's very interesting.

[00:02:45] It's like the cat is telling the story. And it's full of humor, and I, I really like that in life. I like joy. I like having that goal and quest in life to be wiser. So wisdom is the goal. But with joy, not with, you know, it's not, oh, I need to be, why it's. And it's all that I love in that book, the little stories. What it's nice also, it's because having that goal : I want to be wiser, is perfect, but I want to be wiser as a human. 

[00:03:21] Laure: Yes. 

[00:03:21] Nadine: You know? 

[00:03:22] Laure: I know. 

[00:03:23] Nadine: And so it means that you have to accept everything that is wrong and to be full of uh, humilité, humility. And that's really what I like and what I'm trying to do every day. Yes. So I'm not wise at all yet. 

[00:03:43] Laure: That's the humility right now. 

[00:03:44] Nadine: You're right. That's cool.

[00:03:48] Laure: Yeah. I love that. Joy is difficult for me and so I seek it. 

[00:03:52] Nadine: Yeah. 

[00:03:53] Laure: Cause I have more tendency to seriousness. 

[00:03:56] Nadine: Yeah.

[00:03:56] Laure: For many reasons. 

[00:03:57] Nadine: That's okay. 

[00:03:58] Laure: That's okay. No, I know. That's okay. But I also know that the wisest people I know are also very, very joyful. Mm-hmm. and I think it goes together because, being able to rejoice in life and to see life as a kind of a playful engagement. I think that's part of the wisdom really.

[00:04:15] Nadine: Yeah. And also we are talking about humility, but it's also to be kind with yourself. Mm-hmm. Because we are not perfect, and we are learning every day. So that's all right. I mean, as long as you want to do the best and So Le chat du Dalaï Lama, three books. Beautiful books. 

[00:04:39] Laure: Well, thank you for that recommendation. 

[00:04:42] Nadine: No, no, that's fine.

[00:04:43] Laure: You're the first textile artist that I interviewed for this podcast. Yeah. Because until now I've mostly interviewed people who are in the healing world because that's where I am. Mm-hmm. , so that's where I know people. But textile is really important to me. And when I see your pieces, I see stories and I'm really curious to know how do you use story in your work and what's your relationship to story and the pieces that you create? 

[00:05:04] Nadine: In fact, it's very simple. I have always have stories in my head. I mean, my way of being, my way of thinking, of feeling is with images. for music, for everything I see colors and images. It's how it's working in my head. You tell me a word. I see an image. And I start to travel. We are going to take examples, okay? Mm-hmm. I have a good friend of mine called Manuel, Manuel Rangel. He is from Venezuela, and it was in December 2019 and we were talking a lot about mixing music and weaving, because in my life, music is writing, it's a way to tell stories too. And I cannot really separate weaving from music. It's always linked together. I cannot explain that. I'm sorry. It's, it's just because probably it's a very old language too, mm-hmm, and universal language as you know threads and also weaving. But anyway, we decided to do something together and it was just natural talking about Amazonia one night and about Venezuela. I said, that's it. That's it. I mean, Hilos. And Hilo, it's thread in Spanish, so we decided to call it Hilo. We didn't know what we would do, but Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And it's Hilo. Hilos because we have many, and plus we are two already. So we are two Hilos, you know. And the story just started and in fact, I never really want to write a story. I just follow the story. And that's maybe what gives me the freedom, because I follow the yarns. I follow the threads, I follow the hilos, I follow the emotions. I follow my desires. And so each second I'm writing. And also, we were talking about yarns and in my work, every day I'm using yarns. And when you take a yarn, in fact, if you take time to listen to that yarn, he has stories already. So I'm not really choosing the yarn. He's coming to me and he wants to tell the story with me. You know? So it's about that. And in fact it's very simple. There is no really big things to say about that. But maybe what I would like to say is that what it's important in all that it's just to believe in what you follow. And the story will be there all the time for you and it emerges. Oh yeah. 

[00:08:09] Laure: Are you surprised? When you're following?

[00:08:11] Nadine: All the time!

[00:08:11] Laure: And then you're like, ah, new chapter, what is that?

[00:08:14] Nadine: Yes, yes. All the time. And same with Lydie, I'm working with Lydie and she's my coworker. And very often I say, oh, this happened, this happened. I'm so surprised. And that's part really of following the thing, is that you understand, step by step. Okay. Why you pick up that yarn? Why in fact this warp didn't work first and then oh, you found the solution and it's magic. The magic moment too is when, for example, you finish a weaving on the loom, it's time to cut. Mm-hmm. , this is so emotional all the time. So you cut the yarns and then they will tell the story because you don't see anything when you, are weaving I mean, you see just... 

[00:09:06] Laure: No, I know. It's so...

[00:09:07] Nadine: Very small part, you know...

[00:09:08] Laure: ...it's actually, especially when you don't have a plan in advance. I've done one piece that I improvised and at some point you're like: I don't even know if what I'm doing now is going with what I did before, cuz I can't see it. 

[00:09:19] Nadine: Yeah, yeah. Right. You cannot. So I have in my head the shape, the images of everything because it's already, but it's like music. I leave time for improv. No, I never say no, no I decided to do that. I will make it. No. Oh, it goes there. I follow it once again, you know. Mm-hmm. But at the end, you cut the yarns and you have the big picture because then it's alive. That's also creativity and creativity... For me, I cannot create, if I don't feel joy, for example. Never if, if I'm not in a good mood. Okay. Let's go to nature. I will feel better like in 10 minutes, 15 minutes. So after going for one hour with my horse, this is really what I do in that case. But yeah creativity is full of joy, and it's what you put inside, into your weaving, it's this part of soul. And sometimes that's why people, when they see a show we have done, for example a few weeks ago with Manuel.

[00:10:38] We mix music and weaving on stage and I think the people they can feel when they look at things, even looking and hearing and then touching, and learn about the story and discover all that. They felt so good after that. Relaxed and happy. And it's just because we put joy in it and love.

[00:11:11] Laure: You're healing people with thread directly. Yeah. You're creating pieces that basically reorganize people. That's what I feel. Yeah. When I look at your pieces, it's really interesting because they're wild a little bit. you know, They have like nature elements and they're. They're not very straight. But it's interesting because when I look at them, I can feel that there's a reorganization happening. And I'm sure that's what you do for people who look at your pieces. 

[00:11:39] Nadine: Yeah.

[00:11:40] Laure: And I feel like it's because the way that you put your weaving pieces inside of nature, like really close to nature. You just came back from going to the ocean to put one of your weaving , like standing up in the ocean. 

[00:11:55] Nadine: Yeah. Right. 

[00:11:56] Laure: I really love that because I perceive thread and not just weaving, but like thread in general as something that's really alive. And that also has the property to kind of catch the energy of what it's around. Right. 

[00:12:11] Nadine: Of course. And the memories. 

[00:12:12] Laure: And the memories because of the spiral that's in Well, so many Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I feel like there's this very alive relationship between what you're making and nature and that you are really aware of that and nurturing that even more by like saying, okay, I'm gonna bring you guys.

[00:12:28] Nadine: Yeah. Right. 

[00:12:29] Laure: You know, like, this one is about the ocean. I'm gonna bring it into it. 

[00:12:32] Nadine: Yes, that's very important. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I, I even gonna do a weaving next which is a mix of the ocean and hilos. It's going to be a combination of both and small enough, easy enough to pack. So this weaving will be able to travel all over the world. Yes.

[00:12:55] Laure: I really like that idea. Because you're, you're writing a story. The weaving itself is already a story. And then you're adding to the story, like every place you go kind of creates its own story, it carries on its life, of course, in the world. Yes. And I love that idea of, of having something that's, that's not fixed, you know? That's why I like to make things that you can wear. Yeah. Because they have a life on you. 

[00:13:19] Nadine: Oh, of course!

[00:13:20] Laure: And so it moves me very much to see your pieces that you can't wear but that they have a life as much as, Oh yes, something that you could wear. So that's really beautiful. 

[00:13:32] Nadine: And also something I'm thinking about Laure, related to that is, okay, I'm, I'm not a scientist, or, you know, whatever, but I read a little about trees, you know, and trees they have memories . And the message they deliver, the way they communicate is very, very, very slow. And the feeling I have of these persons behind me, yeah, is that in fact, it's exactly the same they are telling stories like this all the time still. And one reason is, for example a yarn is coming from either animal or plants, you know, I mean natural yarns. So they have the memory of many animals already because they're made with many different animals and many different plants. Imagine all the messages you have in the yarn already and after that it's woven. I pass the time, I'm weaving and my emotions and blah, blah, blah. And then all the, the informations they got. So in fact I'm trying every day to listen to them. And I could speak hours about that because I'm surprised every day about everything they say, and the connection they do for me. So that's a gift of life. 

[00:15:06] Laure: It feels almost very strange to meet someone who has the same perception of thread and mm-hmm that I do. Cuz I don't think I've ever met someone who had that. Yeah. And we were talking about joy and I know that when I enter a yarn store, I feel joy. It's instant. Yeah. There's something about the material and the way that it's made and the aliveness of it, that's just lits me up. And so I can see that you would wanna listen to them, they tell a story. 

[00:15:33] Nadine: Oh yeah. They tell a story. Oh, yeah. 

[00:15:35] Laure: And you were telling me earlier that and if you would want to develop a little bit on that, that thread for you were like roots, that they connected you to the Earth. 

[00:15:44] Nadine: Yes. Yeah. Because I mean, yarns are coming from the earth anyway, even if you take silk. I designed something one day in the train. I was stuck in the train and I designed something about myself sitting and connected to to the earth's deep in it. That's probably a cliche to say that because, especially now mm-hmm. I mean, long time ago we didn't really had conversation about connection and being connected to the earth and also to the universe.

[00:16:17] But anyway, okay. It's a cliche now, maybe to say that but I always had that feeling, especially with this art of, of weaving for different reasons. Because of, first, as we said the nature of a yarn. The DNA of a yarn, it's connected to the earth, okay?

[00:16:39] And, okay, I'm an artist. It's the tag I have. So, okay. I'm dreaming, I am stories and all that. Okay. That is not just that, it's also because I had the chance to travel a lot, you know, many years and meet and spend time with different communities of the world. Weavers, we were not talking about weaving. Techniques basically everywhere it's about the same. Okay. But we were talking about the meanings. Mm-hmm. About the spirituality of weaving of yarns, of celebrating the source, of the birth of all these materials too. And when you do that, you have to be connected to the earth and to the universe because you are nothing.

[00:17:40] You are just the canal of everything, that's why it's so precious. And that's why I think for all these communities that I met, having these yarns, being able to weave, it was part of their richness. You know, it was part of their identity. It was part of the spirituality. And ancestors and the knowledge of knowing something and passing it to another person, another generation. So a yarn is that, it's the link of life too .

[00:18:20] And that's why also I combine music to yarns because of maybe two things. One is because like weaving, like yarns music was a communication tool of spirituality to communicate with ancestors with nature.

[00:18:41] And also you can find in between music and yarns and weaving. The vibrations are not similar, but they are like this. do 

[00:18:57] Laure: Intertwined. 

[00:18:57] Nadine: Yeah. And in fact they complete each other and it becomes stronger, really stronger. It's like the message they deliver is more intense because they are together. So I discovered that really more working with Manuel, you know, on Hilos and I don't know in English how to say that, but it's what we, we said about it. I am going to say that in French. **Speaks French** 

[00:20:01] Thank you Laure to translate that . 

[00:20:04] Laure: So , so they each felt that their medium needed the other to be fully revealed. That the weaving needed the music, the vibrations of music to really exist and reveal itself. And that the music really needed the weaving vibration of the thread to exist and reveal itself.

[00:20:21] Nadine: Yeah. And to deliver all the messages also, you know, the story and and to go further and further because it's like, oh, now we can, you know.

[00:20:29] Laure: Yeah. That reminds me of, I think it's the Shipibos, right, who embroider songs? There's a tribe in the Amazon that have an ancient way to embroider sacred songs. Okay. And they can read songs from embroidery. 

[00:20:43] Nadine: I can tell you a little story like that. When Manuel started to compose on Hilos, he had my it's not a design really, but it's like a partition really. When you start to weave, you decide where each yarn is going to go through the needle, blah, blah, blah. It's pretty technical. But anyway, this gives you the possibility of the different weaves you're gonna do on your loom. So he started to compose with that, which is pretty mathematic like music. And the story about that is very funny is, okay, he went back to Venezuela with that paper and all the sounds of my loom. And also the little wind charm, which is outside. Beautiful. And my steps and my hands and the sound of the pen when I'm writing, my intentions for Hilos and his intentions So different, different sounds.

[00:21:45] Soundscapes. Yeah. Okay. But when he came back home, he wanted to start to compose. One day, two days, three days, one week, two weeks, nothing. And he could feel that it wasn't the right way. He really wanted to compose like a composer is doing. And very quickly he felt it wasn't the way. But he couldn't understand why. Huh. So he had the feeling that he had to change something, you know, like intuition. So one night he started, he went back to the guitar and he said, okay, let's try something. And he put the string of the guitar, you know, in "désacord", out tunes. Different chords, out tunes. It felt really, I said, oh, okay. Yeah. Okay, let's do it like that. This sound reminds me something. I don't know what. Anyway, so he tried to compose without listening at any moment, everything that he had record at home, nothing. Just he was composing like this out of tunes and I would say three weeks later he said, okay, maybe now it's time that I listen to everything I have recording in France. Mm-hmm. . And I try to see how I can mix that with and the magic happened at this time, you know, and he understood what happened.

[00:23:18] It's. , all the sound of my loom, all the sound of the wind chime was exactly in tune with what he composed, he cried a lot that day, really. And everything became just in fact true. Mm-hmm. , you know, and also all the mathematic things that he wrote, everything made sense, you know?

[00:23:45] So that's why you don't want to do something. You want to follow it, once again. And that's very important. And I mean, it's a long story about Hilos, but it's always like that with Hilos. He's telling us what to do. 

[00:24:05] Laure: Yeah. I like that idea. That's something that I've been thinking about in my life because I realize that most of the really great things that happened to me or that I did in my life, I was following something that came to me in a way and I just said yes to. Yes. And I was thinking that like the last few years, probably since I've been back to France, I've tried to make things happen a lot. And it's not working or it's working, but it's not as fun. Yeah. It feels like a lot of work, and not even feeling really good about what's happening. Yeah. So I like that idea of following. 

[00:24:39] Nadine: Yeah. And the elements are showing you every day the good path to go. And you don't have to worry.

[00:24:50] Laure: I thought you were gonna say you don't have to work, I ' d really enjoy that, but I know that's not true, you do have to work . You just don't have to worry. 

[00:24:58] Nadine: You don't have to worry. Yeah, I think so. Well because nothing is permanent. Everything is changing every day. So you cannot have goals. I mean, hard goals, yes of course dreams desire, but it has to be light.

[00:25:17] Laure: If you hold it in a tight fist, it's probably not gonna live.

[00:25:21] Nadine: No .

[00:25:22] Laure: You're gonna kill it before it gets the chance to 

[00:25:24] Nadine: Yeah, yeah. Right. 

[00:25:25] Laure: Get wings and start flying. 

[00:25:27] Nadine: Yeah. Just enjoy, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. .

[00:25:31] Laure: So I wonder because you weave actual threads which is interesting. Cuz I usually ask my guests what are the threads that they weave in their lives? The metaphorical threads. I think you've answered that quite a lot already. But I wonder if you, if you had some.... 

[00:25:49] Nadine: So last Monday, I was able to weave with the ocean, the water. I have that image in my head it's like I'm weaving with something which is moving in my hand. It's alive. I'm weaving life, in fact, that's all, and that's my favorite material. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we are weaving life. 

[00:26:18] Laure: Another question that I ask a lot of people that come here is, when do you feel closer to your own soul and when do you feel closer to other people's soul?

[00:26:29] Nadine: I'm not sure if he will listen to that podcast one day. It's all in English, but anyway I think once again, it's when I'm with Manuel working, creating, it's when I feel close to my soul, yes, because it's a language which is universal. In fact, we don't need words, and it's just about emotions, feelings, connections. And with our own media, you know, like yarns and music. I think it's very rare in life to be able to feel that kind of thing. I, I looked at a documentary recently of Yoko Ono and John Lennon and this documentary is really focusing on their creativity in the context of their life, you know? Mm-hmm. . And at the end of the documentary Yoko, she's probably around her eighties, you know, and she say something that made me cry.

[00:27:42] She said, you know, if you look at life as a big picture, in fact we met with John to create Imagine, because Imagine in fact, is the summary of everything they had to do as a mission. Mm-hmm. And for me if I say I have a mission, we have a mission, it's what we feel. It's not about having a power, not about it's a purpose. It's, it's, yeah. And it's a nice feeling of having a mission with someone else to accomplish something with creativity, joy, and maybe if it can give joy to other people you know and honor nature, earth, universe, that's beautiful

[00:28:36] Laure: That's really beautiful. It's a wonderful purpose. .

[00:28:39] Nadine: Yes. 

[00:28:40] Laure: Thank you so much. 

[00:28:41] Nadine: Thank you Laure 

[00:28:42] Laure: Wonderful conversation. .

[00:28:45] Nadine: Thank you. And thank you to everybody. It's really funny once again, because we don't know who is going to listen to that. Right. But yes, I, I wish joy to everybody and enjoy life because it's beautiful. Yes. Even if it's short.