California-based artist Rebecca Burgess coined the term Fibre Shed over a decade ago as a way to consider how our clothing can be locally grown, produced, designed and made. Similar to a water shed – think of a 150 mile radius for knowing your own local fibre-support system. This has grown to an international movement!

EartHand has always been about connecting local makers to local materials here in our urban setting. A Fibre Shed cannot exist without relationships of mutual respect and support. Respect for the land, the plants and animals, the stewards, farmers and numerous skill holders that participate in creating a functioning Fibre Shed.

In Vancouver BC: Beyond the public parks where we grow materials for use and the Russell farm, EartHand also partners with Stanley Park Ecology Society for access to invasive species from the park, and we assist others in creating their own access to materials.

In Nelson BC: We are just beginning to build relationships to the people and the plants in this region and look forward to expanding beyond the back yards that are currently our foraging fodder.

We are thrilled to be able to share as a resource the document created by artist Anna Heywood Jones, as a part of her time as artist in residence in 2022. This pdf is an archive and library of what local cloth in EartHand’s Fibre Shed can look like.

Our primary fibreshed is located on the shared, unceded, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. The learning gardens tended by EartHand hug the north and south shorelines of Skwácháy̓s (hole in bottom in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh sníchim)

We are also grateful to the land and waterways, plants and animals, that feed, nurture and clothe us here.

Thanks to BC Arts Council, which in part helped fuel the gatherings where these plant and animal fibres were processed and spun with community assistance for the making of Anna’s swatches.

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