Linen comes from the stalk of the flax plant (Linum Usitatissimum) and has been used for over 30,000 years to make textiles—longer than any other known fiber, including cotton and wool. It’s prized for its durability, antimicrobial properties, quick drying, and lovely texture.
Flax was once commonly grown for clothing, rope, and other home goods prior to the rise of cotton and industrialization. Today in New England, no manufacturing infrastructure remains for linen-making. However, a handful of artisanal growers and processors are growing, harvesting, rippling, retting, braking, scutching, hackling, combing, and spinning flax—transforming it to linen.
The process is labor- and time- intensive but it can be completed with very little input beyond seeds, labor, sun, and rain. A few mostly wooden tools, which can be made by an intermediate carpenter, are required to process it.
Dirigo Linum is an exploration in reviving this ancient practice in the southern Maine region.
Flax was once commonly grown for clothing, rope, and other home goods prior to the rise of cotton and industrialization. Today in New England, no manufacturing infrastructure remains for linen-making. However, a handful of artisanal growers and processors are growing, harvesting, rippling, retting, braking, scutching, hackling, combing, and spinning flax—transforming it to linen.
The process is labor- and time- intensive but it can be completed with very little input beyond seeds, labor, sun, and rain. A few mostly wooden tools, which can be made by an intermediate carpenter, are required to process it.
Dirigo Linum is an exploration in reviving this ancient practice in the southern Maine region.
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Dirigo Linum started with a couple of books, an idea, hundreds of square feet of discarded cardboard from a local restaurant’s new furniture, a couple pounds of seed, some borrowed tools, and a whole lot of will power. Chrystina Gastelum & Sean Hasey broke ground in May 2021 and planted a patch of about 200 square feet of long line flax on land owned by Subcircle Residency (Scott McPheeters, Niki Cousineau, and Jorge Cousineau). We tended this patch for about 100 days, along with some flowers intended for dye and pollinator food, and in September, we harvested the flax with help from community members, who without much cajoling, agreed to wear all white and dance around a field with us getting dirty in the process. Jorge Cosineau documented the choreographed harvest.
In 2022 we successfully processed some of the 2021 crop into linen yarn in addition to growing another mostly failed crop (drought and long covid). However, the 2022 crop produced seeds, which we are using in 2023. We are grateful to Girard Farm for lending us a row to hoe and letting us experiment as well as to Biddeford Community Gardens for letting us sneak in a late flax crop that year. We have learned more about dyeing, and expanded the fiber crop to sorghum, also known as broomcorn. Yes! We made some brooms! For 2023, we have tilled a little over 1,000 square feet of land in Rotary Park destined to be the city's first public art supply garden. We covered the ground with a large tarp in March and tilled in May. We intend to amend the soil as the season goes on and prep the beds at the end of the season to prepare for an even better harvest next year. If you're interested in being part of the project, please be in touch. We are on Instagram @dirigolinum. |
