(gentle music) (loom clacks) - The best way I can describe it is being in a convertible on the highway on a sunny day.

You just flow.

You just get in the zone and you just at peace, you're centered, and you can just go.

You just go.

You know, the want to be creative was always there.

And to find someplace I could do it blind, was huge.

(loom clacks) Huge.

(bright music) - You know, a lot of people hear weaving and they think there's nothing to it.

There is a lot to weaving.

It can be a pretty straightforward thing or it can be a very complex project that requires you a lot of focus and, you know, a lot of going back to undo what you wove because you didn't do it well.

But it is something that I think people need to enjoy in order to appreciate it.

And that's me since I got here, not knowing anything about weaving.

- Our mission here is to enrich lives through hand weaving and we do that in a couple of different ways.

We teach classes to the public, we exhibit and curate sales of our hand wovens, and we run a unique artisan program.

The artisan program works with people who are visually impaired or blind of any age and people 55 years or older.

And we teach them the craft of hand weaving on a floor loom and they weave all the fabric for the hand woven products that we sell here at the center.

(people chattering) (looms clacking) - Yeah.

- Somebody's (indistinct).

- [Person] Okay.

(people chattering) (looms clacking) - I have been blind since birth due to a genetic disorder and I've been weaving for seven years.

My childhood was pretty much like the life of any other child.

I am the fifth in a family of six, but I was my parents' first blind one, and my younger sister is also blind due to the same genetic disorder.

My parents always showed and told my siblings that they had to guide me or provide a little bit more guidance, again, with the caveat of I could not read and write and print.

I learned braille from a very young age, but not much different than other children.

(people chattering) (loom clacking) - [Person] Put no further interest in you, Derek.

Totally done.

- Oh, before I lost my eyesight, I had thick glasses already, and I thought I had scratched my cornea and went to the eye doctor, and that's when they noticed the pigmentary change in my eyes.

But I had a normal life.

I was working, I was busy with the kids, I had a social life, I was active in church, you know, doing two jobs.

There was nothing I could ask for.

And then to get the diagnosis and they said, "Oh, you'll still have your vision until you're 70 or 80, you know.

Don't worry about it."

And then things started slipping.

I would, you know, bang my head into things, walk into doorways, trip over things, 'cause the peripheral vision was getting smaller and smaller and it just, you know, it was like life slipping away with my eyes.

2001, I could barely see 9/11, you know.

I put my face real close to the TV.

That's one of the last few things I remember really seeing.

I knew that last Christmas was gonna be the last Christmas I could see.

2002 was dark.

It was all gone.

There was no vision, bare light perception.

It's not black, but it's like a very foggy gray.

So, if you're in a heavy, heavy fog, that's how I see.

And life was rough until I found the weaving center.

(Derrick humming) (people chattering) - Aha.

(loom clacks) (people chattering) It was tricky.

It was very tricky at first, because I wasn't sure what I needed to do.

But then after I had some volunteers or staff came over and they helped walk me through what I needed to do at the loom, that's when I started getting used to it.

When I was nine years old, my vision just started to gotten worse as I got older, as years passed.

The left eye was completely gone, the retina was detached, and then the only vision I could see out was my right eye.

And they did operation on it to, like, so I can see it out of that eye.

But unfortunately, the retina was just too detached for me to see out of it, so that's how I ended up losing my vision.

(people chattering) - [Person] How's it going?

(looms clacking) - As a blind weaver, I wear slippers so I could feel the treadles.

Some of it, the easier patterns are, you know, because it's a pattern, it's easier to keep in your head.

The harder patterns, I put on a digital recorder and I'll play a little bit, weave a little bit, play a little bit, weave a little bit, and you get through your pattern.

- And it's different for each person.

As you have probably noticed, I braille my sequences when they're long and I read them So, it's not like I have this gigantic memory and remember, you know.

No, I have tricks, just like anybody else does.

I enjoy coming to a place that it's community-based.

I...

Sometimes, it really is easy to lose yourself and forget about the fact that there are kind people in the world, and I would say this place has a ton of kind people that come and make this possible.

Right now, I think we have about 50 volunteers.

And for me, it's just awesome to know that there is generosity, because that is very generous of them to give us their time to come and do what we are not able to do.

- When you come here, you know, it's the social part.

It's coming in and doing something where your vision is optional.

When I come in the gate, there's a big sigh.

I come in, I can do my work, I have enough aids to help me.

If I get frustrated, there's somebody to help me, but there's days I can do it by myself and be social.

And when I walk out the door, it's like, "I can't believe that I had this great day."

- Oh wow, Joanne.

- Oh, wow!

(Joanne laughs) - Wow!

- Not most colorful project today, but- - No, it certainly isn't.

Boring beige.

They'll be great napkins, though.

- That's what I said.

- Didn't matter that I couldn't see.

I did all the things that I wanted to do without looking, and this place does that for you.

I mean, at home, yeah, I can do things at home.

I cook, I clean, I do laundry.

But to come and do something creative and never see it, the hardest part is not seeing the beautiful pieces you make, but they let you be creative.

You wanna be challenged, they'll challenge you.

They will give you hard pieces to make and, you know, double layers or, you know, two or three shuttles and you do it, and you say, "I did it without looking."

- Something that scares me is knowing or even thinking that I'm not doing something that could possibly help someone else.

And this place has given me the opportunity to feel like I am contributing to something.

- It feels just like home, 'cause you're surrounding yourself with friends and other, you know, other weavers.

So, it does feel like you're around people you can trust, some you can trust, some people you can joke with them, have fun with them, socialize with them.

So, it does feel like home by weaving.

- Yeah, I don't know if I'd be here today without it, to be honest with you.

(soft music)