Allyson Rousseau

I’m Allyson, a fibre artist based in Pictou, Nova Scotia, Canada.

My weaving journey began seven years ago when I was studying Studio Art at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. I was taking a variety of studio courses, and focussing much of my time studying painting, drawing, and sculpture, which included welding and woodworking.
There were no textile or tapestry weaving courses in the Fine Arts department at the time, so I took to the internet to try and find anything I could to teach myself how to weave. There wasn’t much in the way of online resources at the time, which lead to me developing a practice that was completely self-taught.

Three years later in 2016, I took a giant leap by quitting my job in retail and began weaving full-time.
Since then I have exhibited my work in Canada, the US, and Europe, made hundreds of custom pieces for homes and commercial spaces all over the world, developed and created five online video weaving courses, and been featured in numerous publications including two books on contemporary weavers.

A little bit about my process and philosophy:

I make mostly small-scale work using fibres and other materials that I find second-hand as much as possible, and I weave with simple tools that I make myself or source from my local craft and hardware stores.

It has always been really important to me that I do as much as I can with as little as I can, and that includes creating as little waste as possible by re-using all of my yarn scraps.

There are almost an endless amount of techniques that you can use to weave different patterns and designs, many different types of looms and tools, and more yarns in existence than you can imagine. All of this can make weaving seem really intimidating, which is why the goal of my artistic practice and as a teacher is to simplify the process as much as possible while maximizing the visual potential by using bold colour palettes and three-dimensionality.

My hope is that this will help to make weaving more of an accessible art form and inspire others to explore their interest in the craft.