ABOUT
For at least 27,000 years, peoples from across the globe have discovered ways of weaving. Within different regions unique traditions developed, created by the confluence of technology, material, and culture. At the Newbury School of Weaving, we preserve and teach the Euro-American expression of traditional textile making. This system has much in common with traditions found throughout the globe, from eastern Asia to Africa and Central and South America, due to spontaneous human discovery and the spread of technology.
When the school was founded by Norman Kennedy, the methods taught were those he learned in Scotland in the first half of the 20th century. Since that time the school has expanded to include techniques researched from sources dating to the 19th century and earlier, with an emphasis on rediscovering those techniques that have fallen out of use over the past 150 years. This tradition reaches back 1,000 years to the introduction of the horizontal loom to Western Europe during the Middle Ages and is the same one that was brought to early America through European colonization. This time honored way of making cloth was widespread in our region before it all but disappeared under the power loom and was ignored by the craft revivals of the 20th century. Today, the Newbury community is the heart of this vibrant tradition in the United States.
Founded in 1975 as Marshfield School of Weaving in Marshfield, Vermont, the school relocated its operations to Newbury, Vermont in 2024. In recognition of the outpouring of community support that made the move possible, the school changed its name to The Newbury School of Weaving in 2025. Though the location has changed, the school's dedication to traditional craft, research, preservation, and education has never been stronger.
HISTORY
NORMAN KENNEDY
In the 1930s, when handweaving all but ceased to exist, the clattering of a few old hand looms behind an Aberdeen, Scotland tenement caught Norman Kennedy’s attention. Drawn to the work, he traveled through the Outer Hebrides learning Gaelic, folksongs, and an unbroken textile tradition that stretched back centuries. In 1965, Norman was invited to perform at the Newport Folk Festival, returned the following year, and by 1967 was the Master Weaver at Colonial Williamsburg. With the support of Virginia Stranahan he founded the Marshfield School of Weaving in 1975 which he ran until it closed for a period beginning in 1992. The National Endowment for the Arts recognized Norman’s remarkable preservation of the folk tradition naming him a National Heritage Fellow in 2003.
KATE SMITH
In 1976, Kate Smith enrolled in a six-week scuba diving class, and while riding on a bus, sat next to a woman whose daughter taught weaving in Putney, Vermont. Captivated by the thought of learning to weave, Kate changed her plans, ditched scuba diving, and headed north. At Marshfield she discovered Norman Kennedy and the school, igniting a passion for working with historic equipment and weaving traditional textiles. Kate became Norman's apprentice until the school closed in 1992, when she founded Eaton Hill Textile Works, a studio dedicated to recreating historic fabrics, and continued to teach students on a small scale. In the early 2000s Kate re-opened the Marshfield School of Weaving in its original location. Kate retired from the weaving school in 2023, and still, after all these years, has never gone scuba diving.
Class sizes are intimate and instruction can be tailored to a wide range of traditional and contemporary work. Our staff instructors are not just teachers, but are also professional handweavers and bring a unique perspective on what it means to practice a deep-rooted craft in the modern world.
STAFF
JUSTIN SQUIZZERO
DIRECTOR
Justin’s earliest memories of his grandmother are also his first memories of wool. An avid spinner, weaver, and dyer, Justin’s grandmother taught him how to spin yarn on a great wheel that descended in his mother’s family while he was still a child. By his teenage years his interests grew to spinning flax and weaving, clearing most of the space in his bedroom to accommodate a historic four-post loom. In 2007, while working at Plimoth Patuxet Museums, Justin met Norman and Kate and spent several winters at Marshfield learning traditional weaving technique. In 2013 he left the museum field and returned to Marshfield to weave for Eaton Hill Textile Works, and in 2017 started his own business, The Burroughs Garret. Upon Kate's retirement in 2023, Justin became the school's Director. Justin weaves linen damask using a 19th-century Jacquard loom and has exhibited his work internationally. Through teaching he is dedicated to rebuilding a connection between today’s weavers and the handweaving tradition that existed before the 20th century. View Justin's CV here.
VISITING INSTRUCTORS
