As our days get shorter we have turned our thoughts to the containers we desire for our gathering together- virtually and in person – this Fall.
We are proud to be pulling together a variety of options that draw on the strengths of EartHand’s past offerings (we hear you when you ask for more!).
And, some new programs informed in part from our Summer research project Braiding Past Threads to Present Place.
You might notice the technical offerings are strongly focused on materials processing and spinning – jump on those programs quick, as they won’t be back until late in 2023! Winter programs will focus on weaving, knitting, mending and other ways for working with the threads that come from this Autumns’ sessions.
Land Lessons: Weathering Systems Almanac
Monthly virtual drop-in gathering with Jaymie Johnson and Sharon Kallis
Individual tickets for each session: September 19, October 24, November 21
WEAVING:
September 10, In partnership with VanDusen Gardens: Daylilies for Rope making and more
Dye:
Starts September 24, Natural Dyes: From Wood to Wool, 3 Saturdays with Anna Heywood-Jones, in person
Fibres:
October 26, Virtual Spinning, 1 session Wednesday night with Sharon Kallis, virtual
October 29, Nettles and Wild Fibre: processing and spinning, 1 session Saturday with Sharon Kallis, in person
Starts November 15, 3 Tuesday evenings with Jaymie Johnson and Sharon Kallis, virtual Nov 15, Dec 6, Dec 20– (free community online gatherings)
Cloth Conversations: Personal and Society
Starts October 24, Textiles and Racism Reading Group, 7 Tuesday evenings with Jen Hiebert and Sharon Kallis, virtual
Starts November 2, A Reflection on our Stories and Colonization, 3 Wednesday evenings with Daniela Guerrero-Rodriguez, virtual
Starts November 6, Braiding Past Threads to Present Place Ancestral Cloth Guild, 8 Sunday mornings with Sharon Kallis, virtual
Special Return Engagement!
Starts November 23rd Knotless Netting: dressing a stone, making a pouch, 2 Wednesday evenings with Joan Carrigan, virtual
While during the Spring and Summer we are outdoors with priority given to weaving fences and tending the land, Autumn and Winter are for nestling in and enjoying the bounty of that work with materials a plenty.
We believe strongly in busy hands while we converse and learn together; sharing ideas, building skill capacity and community connections. We hope you can join us!
When we gather, we look to this poem by Mickey ScottBey Jones based on an original text by Beth Stranos to inform how we come together:
Together we will create brave space.
Mickey ScottBey Jones ( and Beth Stranos)
Because there is no such thing as a “safe space” —
We exist in the real world.
We all carry scars and we have all caused wounds.
In this space
We seek to turn down the volume of the outside world,
We amplify voices that fight to be heard elsewhere,
We call each other to more truth and love.
We have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow.
We have the responsibility to examine what we think we know.
We will not be perfect.
This space will not be perfect.
It will not always be what we wish it to be.
But
It will be our brave space together,
and
We will work on it side by side.
As always, so much gratitude for those that come and join in the conversations, and help shape the directions for how we come together again. In this way, the gatherings and conversations for which we meet up are never dull or repetitious, but provide new ways of sinking deeper into areas of collective and personal research, while still holding room for new folks to enter.
We always come back to Ray Oldenburg’s concept of the Third Place – not home, not office, but a place to gather with others – and in the winter when we don’t have a physical space to meet, we are thrilled to create virtual rooms for our conversations to continue.
“A thread is now a line of conversation via email or other electronic means, but thread must have been even more compelling a metaphor when most people witnessed or did the women’s work that is spinning. It is a mesmerizing art, the spindle revolving below the strong thread that the fingers twist out of the mass of fiber held on an arm or a distaff. The gesture turns the cloudy mass of flax or wool into lines with which the world can be tied together. Likewise the spinning wheel turns, cyclical time revolving to draw out the linear time of a thread. The verb to spin first meant just this act of making, then evolved to mean anything turning rapidly, and then it came to mean telling a tale.”
excerpt from Rebecca Solnit’s The Faraway Nearby ( 2013, Penguin)