Linda Rhynard on what our hands know, and our mind doesn't

In 2020, Linda Rhynard fell and shattered her left hand, wrist, and elbow. Months of surgeries and physical therapy followed. In the still quiet moments at night, instead of mourning what she'd lost, she made a decision:

Every August 19th—the anniversary of her injury—she would learn something new, reactivate the creative part of herself that corporate life had required her to set aside.

She volunteered at a local museum recreating 1790s farm life. She learned to spin. Then, on a weaving tour through Scotland, she walked through the door of Joan Baxter's studio in the village of Brora and saw tapestries on the walls.

She knew immediately: tapestry weaving was what she wanted to do.

Now, from her Bristol studio overlooking the Kickimuit River where she watches swans and hears ospreys, Rhynard teaches tapestry weaving. Not to create a body of work for herself, but because she lives to teach.

Her students—some with her for seven years—are the weft threads of her life's tapestry.

In this conversation, Rhynard reflects on what her hands know that her mind doesn't, why she withdrew to her loom when her sister died, and what it means to define your practice not by what you make, but by what you pass on.