Video summary

Ep. 10 House Calls -- Virtual Studio Visits in a Pandemic: Levon Kafafian (30 min)

Main summary

Key takeaways

Art and Creativity

Episode overview

  • This video is Episode 10, the “grand finale,” of House Calls, a University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities gallery web series.
  • The series features staff checking in with artists statewide about their creative lives during the pandemic.
  • Featured guest: Levon Kafafian (textile artist, writer, singer, performer).

Kafafian: pandemic impact on daily creative practice

Kafafian explains how isolation and global crises reshaped their routine:

  • They depended on long phone conversations with friends and family as a form of safe storytelling and emotional processing.
  • Before shutdown, they used familiar public social spaces (like cafes) to “pretend to work” while processing life through community presence.
  • During shutdown, they shifted to sustained making at home, while staying connected through calls.

Recent textile work: crochet

Kafafian describes recent crochet shawls/mantles/wraps created while watching:

  • Star Trek: The Next Generation
  • Star Trek: Voyager
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
  • They plan to continue with Enterprise

They also describe how quarantine constraints shaped their process:

  • Once they gathered yarn, they planned color palettes and produced repeatedly in a consistent style/shape.
  • The making followed the rhythm of the shows, creating structure during disruption.

Recent textile work: hand weaving

Kafafian discusses woven pieces in terms of both fabric behavior and construction details:

  • Fabric behavior:
    • softness vs. thickness and scratch
    • drape
    • scrunching
  • Construction details:
    • cording strands spun together in alternating directions
    • finished with overhand knots

Weaving as storytelling and time

Kafafian connects weaving to narrative and temporality:

  • Weaving is portrayed as a process of time and interaction—almost “clockwork.”
  • They reference a metaphor from their grandfather’s watchmaking.
  • Storytelling begins from materials/color/texture rather than dialogue—focused on world-building.
  • Fabric is framed as a carrier of memory, like an oral-history artifact that allows the maker’s life context to be “revisited” through the work.

Collaboration and performance during the pandemic

Kafafian explains how their collaboration/performance practice changed:

  • Much work and public-facing performance/installation paused.
  • Their role becomes a “weaver of people,” emphasizing:
    • maintaining connections
    • directing resources to those in need
  • They plan a long-silent website shop and intend to donate proceeds from new works to Detroit organizations supporting:
    • food
    • water
    • housing security
    • as well as support for artists

Education and apprenticeship concept

Kafafian proposes an idea for an apprenticeship program for weavers:

  • Not only passing down weaving technique
  • But teaching how weaving integrates with other creative practices
  • They also express a desire for clearer, more hands-on instruction, contrasting with their own “figure it out yourself” training.

What keeps them grounded

As the episode closes, Kafafian names what supports them daily:

  • Weather
  • Phone calls
  • Living with 4–5 housemates for ongoing support

Credits / thanks

The host team thanks the artists involved in the series, including multiple contributors listed near the end of the subtitles.

Artistic techniques, concepts, and creative processes shown/mentioned

Textile creation: crochet

  • Building repeated shawl/wrap shapes as a sustained quarantine project
  • Color palette planning and yarn collection (“horde”) to guide form and iteration
  • Making while following a TV narrative (Star Trek) to structure time and motivation

Textile creation: hand weaving

  • Using warp-based fabrics and comparing drape, thickness, and scrunch characteristics across “sister” constructions
  • Cording construction, including:
    • spinning strand sets in one direction
    • bringing strands together and spinning in the opposite direction
    • finishing with repeated overhand knots

Stitch-based pattern transfer (provisional method)

  • Temporarily embellish woven pieces with a stitch
  • Tighten, dye, then remove the stitch
  • Result: a pattern without adding extra thread

Weaving-as-storytelling (conceptual framework)

  • Story begins with the material world (colors, textures, materials), not dialogue
  • Fabric works as a memory/record of the maker’s emotional and life context at the time of creation
  • The practice includes world-building before character/action/dialogue

Time-based craft iteration

  • Projects described as rhythm-driven, multi-step, and process-centered
  • “Every step is a point in the arc of becoming,” emphasizing developmental time

Community engagement as creative practice

  • During the pandemic, performance/installation paused
  • Kafafian reframes their work as maintaining connection, coordinating resources, and supporting others through sales/donations

Education and mentorship

  • Designing an apprenticeship program to pass down weaving plus integrated practices
  • Desire for more directed, hands-on instruction

Steps / materials / advice explicitly described

Crochet project process (quarantine-driven)

  • Gather as much yarn as possible from an existing collection (“horde”)
  • Arrange color palettes
  • Choose a repeated shape/style construction and iterate continuously
  • Maintain the production rhythm while watching Star Trek episodes

Woven end-finishing method (cording described)

  • Spin one set of strands in one direction
  • Bring the strands together and spin in the other direction until tight enough
  • Tie an overhand knot at the end
  • Repeat the knotting pattern multiple times

Temporary stitch + dye pattern plan (future technique)

  • Add a temporary stitch to the fabric
  • Tighten the stitch
  • Dye the fabric to imprint a pattern
  • Remove the stitch afterward, leaving the pattern without extra thread

Sample-making philosophy (career advice / artistic approach)

  • Avoid making small samples: test methods at full-piece scale
  • Treat everything as “big things,” so prototypes become accumulating cutoffs
  • Keep possibilities for later usefulness (e.g., imagined patches/pockets/repairs)

Creators / contributors featured (mentioned at the end)

  • Sarah Rose Sharp (piloted the series)
  • Sajeev Vishweshwaran
  • Judy Bowman
  • Mandy Cano via Lobos
  • Lavinia Hanachuk
  • Rashaan Rucker
  • Yanazaro Ricky Weaver
  • Jaina Cortez
  • Levon Kafafian (the featured guest)

Original video