Fiber
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Neil A. Colmer was born at home in Pomeroy Ohio August 14 1949. He began his career as an artist when he wove thread around an open door in the style of a giant spiders web. A few years later, his older brother started teaching him knots for his Boy Scout activities. This led him to a fascination with threads that would follow him the rest of his life. When Neil was 10 years old, he developed Aseptic Necrosis in his upper leg and wore a leg brace for a year and a half. Fortunately, he had a perfect recovery and has always appreciated the second chance he has been given to walk without a permanent limp. Neil’s parents would pull out a fiddle or mandolin to play a tune or two and it was a pleasant surprise to the family when he developed an interest in music as well. By the time he left high school, he was playing drums in a rock and roll band and in the High School band. By the time he graduated from Berea College he had picked up dulcimer as well as guitar, penny whistle, banjo and mandolin. His last year of college he was given the honor of being one of the two first recipients of the Red Foley Music Award in 1971, for music. Neil A. Colmer came to Berea College in 1967 and enrolled as a freshman to major in Spanish. He joined the Country Dancers under Ethel Capps and toured the country with them for four years. His labor assignment led to a ten hour a week job as a student weaver, which became a passion and a 40-year career. His work as a weaver earned him the Sarah Fuller Prize Loom for his excellence in weaving in 1971. After graduation, Ken Snyder asked him to help hire quality craftspeople to work at Fort Boonsboro and he was the full time employee of the State of Kentucky for 6 years. He was a weaver, candle maker and toy production worker during those years and greeted up to a thousand people a day during the summer months. While he was working for the Kentucky Park System, The Kentucky Colonel Commission was awarded to him for his work being a spokesperson for our state. Neil decided to become an independent weaver in 1977 and began to weave at home and sell his products at craft fairs and in gift shops in the Berea area. Folks told him that being self-employed took a lot of Bottom, or courage, and since he was starting at the bottom, he named his new weaving business, Weaver’s Bottom. The first few years were very hard. He began working for Churchill Weavers in Berea, in 1980 where he set the speed record for every loom in the history of the company during his six years as one of their production weavers. He continued to weave at home during those years, putting in 8 to 10 hours a day for Churchill Weavers and another 2 or 3 three hours every evening on his loom at home. He and his wife, Mary opened a studio on North Broadway, in 1983, and she kept it running during the day while he worked at the factory. They were able to begin working together when he left Churchill Weaver’s in 1985. The couple bought their studio on North Broadway, in Berea, in 1989 and he has been a Professional Hand Weaver ever since. Today you can find Neil making large bedspreads with people’s names and wedding dates in the corner, scarves that people buy to send to their relatives working in Antarctica, cotton dish towels, and custom orders of fine American threads. You may also dance to his flute music every Friday night at the English Country Dance. He is never too busy to visit and talk with folks who come to call and he enjoys the pleasures of working at the finest trade in the world, weaving products, MADE IN AMERICA, by an AMERICAN. |
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Neil and Mary Colmer |
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