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From traveling through each others bookshelves to Plan Jam Goal Friends, we have some opportunities to be online together soon!

Sharon and other EartHand leaders are doing lots of work behind the scenes to get ready for what we will be offering in the coming months for both technical learning and community sharing time. Meanwhile, a few free, virtual events to give us some space to gather and share.

Sharon needs a book club! But not any book club... a makers book shelf club... are you interested in traveling through each others books online together? These two sessions are free and you are welcome to register for one or both and join in and have this as an opportunity to revisit your own books and choose what you want to share, then be inspired by what others bring to discuss.

November 16th Mon. evening more info and register here

December 2nd Wed. morning more info and register here

And announcing Plan Jam Goal Friends– a two session check in time to help you build back structure to your days if that is suddenly lacking, or get going in taking new steps in time management and self control. Sharon’s working title for this group has been “the off-leash club” but if you never had a city dog suddenly gleefully running all over the park and not knowing what to do first you wouldn’t understand…2020 has been chaotic, lets settle down again. Hosted by Amy Walker and Sharon Kallis on December 1st and January 5, find out more and register here.

In the Gardens!

One of Sharon’s favourite times in the gardens- the living sculptures of Means of Production and Trillium really start to showcase. Plan a walk sometime and go for a visit, and if you can- sign up to assist us in caring for these community gems. If we are allowed to gather outside in small groups again at that point, the sessions will go forward!

Saturday Nov 21 at MOP– register here

Saturday Nov 28 at Trillium– register here

Short cold days and long winter nights is the perfect time to get lost at home in hand projects galore. Below is a growing list of things that have inspired thoughtful listening while working on hand projects.

Favourites from our executive director Sharon Kallis:

Canadian actor and writer Dan Levy has been taking the University of Alberta’s Indigenous Awareness and Reconciliation Online course this year, and though I haven’t taken the class myself yet, I love listening to these weekly check in’s with professors Dr. Tracy Bear & Dr. Paul Gareau, and learn so much from the conversations. As guest Matthew Wildcat said in one of modules, “the craft of decolonization is an ongoing practice we need to each define for ourselves thru conversations with others.” Find all the conversations on Dan’s youtube page for this project here.

Heart of the City Festival went virtual this year! EartHand loves partnering with Vancouver Moving Theatre in some way each year for this festival, but it is always hard to make it out to all the many things that happen in the community and the FOMO is real. this year so much was virtual or recorded for sharing we get to savor the festival all winter long! Find the archived events here, and don’t miss the Earthand Guild leader roundtable dialogue This Gives us Strength: From the land to online.

The Ground Shots Podcast is an audio project exploring our relationship to ecology through conversations and storytelling. How do we do our work in the modern age, when the urgency of ecological and social collapse feels looming? How do we creatively and whole-heartedly navigate our relationships with one another and the land? Sharon was interviewed for the series and the talk can be found in episode #47

Future Ecologies is a podcast about the many ways we relate to our living planet. Every episode weaves together narrative storytelling, informative interviews, and science communication, supported by evocative soundscapes and music. Co-hosted and produced by Mendel Skulski and Adam Huggins- some of you will know Mendel as local resident and community member of Onkle Hoonkies Fabulous Horn Shop carving nights. Don’t miss the podcast with Oliver Kellhammer who started Means of Production Garden

Ologies Podcast Series: Hosted by Alie Ward, she describes the series as a comedic science podcast, asking smart people stupid questions. These are delightful to listen to while working!

Canada’s National Observer -Editor-in-Chief Linda Solomon Wood having conversations with cultural leaders and fascinating personalities on the big stories happening in our world. Some are subscriber-exclusives while others are open to the public. You can find all the talks available here as recordings.

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We are thrilled to have Nicola Hodges able to work with us still – joining us virtually from the Sunshine Coast. Time together with knitting needles has always been a part of how our community gathers, and this fall we have formalized this into a guild opportunity where a small group of knitters can inspire each other to take on challenges, knowing Nicola is a young master at problem solving the making of knitwear, even remote through a screen!

Your $50 registration goes direct to Nicola for hosting this group.

Wednesday nights, 7-8.30pm

Oct  28th, Nov 11th, 25, Dec 9th

click here for more information and to register.

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Thursday evenings,

7:00-8:30, Sept 24, Oct 8, 22, Nov 5, 19, Dec 3 

6 sessions – $75

Max 8 participants, virtual participation

book your spot to participate here

Become comfortable weaving on a form, practicing twining techniques, and building skills required for weaving garden hats in 2021! Garden ornamental and invasive seasonal green-waste are the focal materials to be finding and weaving for this guild. Participants will share virtually what materials they’re investigating, with time each session spent covering a required technique from starts, shaping, adding materials and spokes, finishes, and braiding or rope strap options. Additional time each week for round table questions and sharing of successes with the group.

Some weaving experience is a bonus but not necessary – guild members may need to do their own research and youtube deep dives for additional weaving assistance. Depending on the speed you work, you may make several projects throughout the guild or do less weaving between sessions and complete one project.

Led by Jaymie Johnson based in Nelson BC on the traditional territory of the Sinixt people, the material focus will be plants from this region, people in other areas are welcome to participate.

Materials List:

Access to invasive plants or garden green waste such as dandelions, iris, daylily, crocosmia or other soft leaf garden plants

Jars or bottles as weaving forms

Studio towel

Scissors or small clippers

Water bucket

Wifi and device with camera for virtual participation

Clothespins or bulldog clips (useful but optional)

Darning needle (useful but optional)

Sharon Kallis of EartHand Gleaners and Amy Walker of Makemobile enjoy making in public whenever possible. In the spirit of using public spaces as places for arts and life, we invite you to bring your own portable hand work (ie knitting, stitching, braiding, weaving, carving painting, etc.) for three physically-distant making jams in three city parks.

Sharon Kallis will braid stinging nettle grown and processed by her in city parks for a vest. Amy will wet-felt locally-sourced sheep’s wool into a jacket.

Everyone is expected to work independently at this event, there will be no instruction.

Thursday, September 10 4-6 pm at Woodland Park

Saturday, September 12, 10 am – 12 pm at Cultural Harmony Grove Park

Thursday, September 17, 1-3 pm at Hadden Park

Weather dependent, locations may flex to nearby sheltered public spaces if required, or be cancelled completely- ask yourself- do I want to bike and work in this? If the answer is yes, we will be there!

Sharon gratefully acknowledges BC Arts Council for the support in the creation of the nettle braiding project.

We’re more than halfway through EartHand’s first Kootenay-based programming, the Nelson Materials Investigation Series! For three sessions now, a group of 7-8 of us, primarily located on the traditional territories of the Sinixt and Ktunaxa peoples in the West Kootenays, have gathered virtually via Zoom for a show-and-tell of backyard fibre materials, to share and compare notes about harvesting, soaking, and processing, and to learn and practice some basic hand technology skills such as rope-making, stem splitting, and multi-strand braiding.

We’ve also been sharing resources and stories to help each other learn about whose land we’re each calling in from, to learn about resources and ethical practices when using invasive plants, and are slowing but surely building a little virtual (for now) community of folks comfortable enough to share our excitement about repurposed pet hair fibre projects!

Collectively, we’re investigating the backyard green-waste fibre potential of a growing list of plants including hops, orange hawkweed, dandelion, lilac bark, raspberry bark, buttercup, scotch broom, hazel bark, smokebush bark, daylily, oxeye daisy, bindweed, grasses, clematis, goatsbeard, bird vetch, lavender, and others!

With momentum and optimism to continue this work, Jaymie is interested in connecting with West Kootenay environmental non-profits, host nation storytellers, weavers, and knowledge holders, SD8 school teachers, and any other folks or organizations interested in pursuing environmental art projects in collaboration with EartHand Nelson in the near future. Please contact her at EarthandNelson(at)gmail.com.

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✿What Is a Digital Garden? ✿ Artist talk and Q & A with Sarah Holloway  

✮✮July 7th, 2020 7pm (PT)

Get your tickets here!

The language of how we describe experiences in the environment and computation are intertwined. The internet is described as water, social media as a mycelium network and navigating digital spaces as ‘surfing the web’. In turn, computational language has been used to describe the natural world. Close to home, Oliver Kellhammer described the original planting of Means of Production Garden as “an open source landscape…” In visiting artist, Sarah Holloway’s talk she will break down the term, digital garden and discuss the work of artists and critiques who explore the relationships between ecology and computation. From acoustic ecology pioneered in Vancouver during the 1970s to a memory garden for collective morning, the talk will examine how ‘new’ media has interacted with ecology and how these examples have influenced Sarah’s work growing a digital garden for Earthand.

Join us for this talk, What is a Digital Garden?, to better understand the project, Digitizing the Visceral: Making in the Spaces Between, and get an overview of the adjacent workshops being led throughout the month of July.  

Digitizing the Visceral: Making in the Spaces Between, is a project lead by Sarah Holloway. Over the course of the summer Sarah has been mapping and observing  EartHand’s two community gardens. Sarah will be growing an online garden for the community to access information on the irl gardens plants, harvests and happenings as well as community members’ ecological art practices and research-accessible from afar. 

Join in and help us map the garden in real time, so Sarah Holloway can create a digital map for both sites! These are free events, sponsored in part by Vancouver Park Board: Arts Culture and Engagement Dept and EartHand Gleaners Society

What is a digital garden you ask?

find out July 7th 7.15-8.15pm, virtual artists talk with Sarah- get your ticket here!

mapping and site tours- small groups, preregistration is required

June 29 7-8.30 pm – fibre and weaving plantings tour and mapping/drawing with Sharon Kallis tickets here

July 6 7-8.30 pm – natural colour: dyes and pigments tour and mapping/drawing with Sharon Kallis tickets here

July 13 7-8.30 pm – food and medicine tour and mapping/drawing with Lori Synder tickets here

July 16 7-8.30pm – wood working tour and mapping/drawing with David Gowman tickets here

For more information about the project visit this web post