Woven Memories: A Fiber Art Exhibition

June 24, 2019 in ART

Last week we had the opening party for Woven Memories: A Fiber Art Exhibition, which was the culmination of my teaching residency with SU-CASA at Grand Street Settlement in the Lower East Side.

We had artwork from the participants of my class on the wall, including embroidery, weavings, shibori, and macramé. It was really lovely to see all of their work and I am very proud of each of them! They all create unique, beautiful works of art using techniques they did not know previously.

We celebrated with a DJ and had a true dance party. The center and I also gave out certificates to everyone who participated and some students even came up and spoke about the class. I was very touched by all the kind words an by how happy everyone was to see their work up on the walls and celebrate.

This experience was much more rewarding and uplifting than I expected, it was also harder than I expected, but helped me grow as a teacher and an artist. I am thankful to have spent so much quality time with the seniors in my neighborhood and I hope to be back with them soon!

Above are images of some of their work. You can read through my other blog posts on SU-CASA that I wrote throughout the program.

Week 17 Weaving & SU-CASA Exhibition Time!

June 04, 2019 in ART

Today we continued working on our tapestries. Everyone seems to enjoy this process, which makes me very happy as it is my favorite as well!

We are using a variety of materials and colors. I’ve been fairly hands off in my instruction and instead helping guide them as to what colors or materials they are drawn to. They have definitely impressed me!!

We just have one more week and then it’s time for the final exhibition! I am so excited! Please join if you are available and nearby!

SU-CASA Week 15 - 16: Weaving

June 02, 2019 in ART

These past few weeks we have started weaving! Each student has her own lap loom that we dressed with cotton warp. They each are doing plain weave and also some other techniques, like rya knots.

It took a little bit of time to get each person’s loom set up with the warp, but once they all got set up and learned the basics, they really got going! They are using a variety of yarn, ribbon, fabric strips, and trims to create their weavings.

SU-CASA Week 12-14: Finishing Up Embroidery and Shibori Dyeing!

May 17, 2019 in ART

We’ve been busy these past few weeks! We worked on our embroidery paintings and then did shibori indigo dyeing!

One of the most magical moments so far is when someone starts humming or singing while embroidering and then they all start singing songs together. It’s great.

SU-CASA Week 10 - 11: Thread Art

April 23, 2019 in ART

These last few weeks we’ve been focused on embroidery. We started with samplers to learn a variety of stitches and now we are start on our artwork.

To start, I asked everyone to write out a recent dream. It was hard for most people, myself included, to remember a dream, but it did help many of them think of some imagery and get started on their piece. Next, they picked out fabric to use as the backdrop to their piece. They picked out colors and started translating their image onto their fabric.

They also used sequins and beads to embellish their work.

I can’t wait to see the final projects!

Week 5: Students who were further along helped the students still in the beginning phases. Most students finished their first plant hangers.

SU-CASA: Week 3 - 6 -- Macramé Plant Hangers

March 21, 2019 in ART

These past few weeks we’ve been using our knowledge of macramé knots to create a plant hanger. This piece will be something the students can take home and I think is a good introduction to macramé as craft. Later, I hope to help the students use macramé as art, but while are are creating these it makes me wonder what the difference is. Is craft just decoration? Can craft be art when done in a particular way, with a particular intention?

Week 3: We started our first plant hanger project.

I pre-cut all the cords for each student according to the pattern I usually use for macramé plant hangers, which I teach to adults quite often and as an airbnb experience via Distill Creative. During our class, I set up a photo backdrop pole hanger which functions as our stand where we hang our projects. This works fairly well, however, over the past few weeks we’ve gotten more and more students and so I’ve had bring out these macramé stands, which we put on the backs of chairs!

One student is using the macramé hanger on the back of a chair.

We took about three weeks to work on this project. I’ll admit, I thought we would finish it in two sessions, but because we had many students added on each week, which is awesome, and everyone moved at a different speed, we needed more time. My class started as mostly Spanish-speaking, but we’ve attracted many ladies from the Chinese Macramé class (which I also sat in on a few weeks ago) and now I’d say the class is about 40% Spanish-speaking, 40% Chinese-speaking, and 10% English-speaking. I am really happy that our class is integrated as I know that was one of the desires of our participants, and me!

A view from the Chinese Macramé class I sat in on. It is super complicated and uses much thinner yarn than I usually use!

Another really awesome development in our class is that students have started helping each other. I’ll turn around and see one student showing another student the next knot and it just melts my heart. This happens even between students who do not speak the same language! It’s really cool to see and helps me out a lot as I am only one person and sometimes many students need attention at the same time. My class has been about twelve people consistently and usually grows over the course of the two and a half hours.

This past week I had my sister substitute because I had some travel planned (more on this soon!). All my students wanted to make another plant hanger, so we’ll do another couple weeks where they can create their own design!