Using Hazel wood, students will work with pre-harvested rods from Means of Production, learn the stages for preparing bow blanks, then like a cooking show transfer to cured and dried Hazel from Hazelton BC to complete their bows while understanding all the principles including the process of tillering (bending) and stringing light-weight bows.
This is a small class of 3 maximum. These classes are often in the range of $1500. Take advantage of this special opportunity to work with Michael!
Class cost includes all materials including an arrow from Michael.
This basket is fun and relatively easy to make. Coiling can feel more like sewing than weaving, as pieces are wrapped together in a completely different fashion from twining or regular weaving. It also requires a lot less material to be gathered. We will be using a combination of long pine needles and Scotch broom as the “foundation” and peeled, split English Ivy roots and other barks as the “stitch” material. These different combinations of materials present a beautiful, aesthetically pleasing contrasts of color.
There will be a potluck lunch break, please bring something to share. There is an oven and fridge in the fieldhouse.
Last Tuesday we held our first sewing circle at the Community Centre. It was a cozy and fun evening as we stitched together the first layers of the Treasuring Strathcona legacy art piece with new and old friends.
Janey, Jay and the kids wanted to imagine how the space of this neighbourhood might have looked and felt before European contact and what plant, bird, fish and animal life might have lived alongside the Indigenous peoples of this land.
They used images of footprints to incorporate the idea of mapping place and being on the land. This is something we wanted to carry into the legacy art piece, a mingling of ancient and recent histories and depictions of plant and animal presence alongside human life.
Treasuring Strathcona from its inception has been focused on the idea of mapping the neighbourhood and exploring how cartographies might be reconsidered, animized and decolonized. The final piece in this project will live at the Community Centre and our intention is for the work to map the many histories that are held in this vibrant place.
Our next Sewing Circle is November 21st (7-9pm) and will be held in the Multipurpose Room on the 2nd floor of the Strathcona Community Centre. Come join us and add your mark to this collaborative neighbourhood art work.
On World Food Day, Alex Ramirez hosted a stitching event at the Strathcona Community Centre. He was joined by stitchers of all ages and they worked on cloth that was collaboratively dyed & printed with food and medicinal plants harvested from the Strathcona Community Garden in September.
Treasuring Strathcona will be holding a series of stitching circles in the coming months, leading towards the collective creation of a final art work which will live at the community centre. The dates for these circles are as follows: Tue. Oct 29 (7-9pm) – Activity Room (main floor), Thu. Nov 21 (7-9pm) – Multipurpose Room (2nd floor), Thu. Nov 28 (7-9pm) – Activity Room (main floor). Come join us!
On World Food Day, Alex Ramirez hosted a stitching event at the Strathcona Community Centre. He was joined by stitchers of all ages and they worked on cloth that was collaboratively dyed & printed with food and medicinal plants harvested from the Strathcona Community Garden in September.
Treasuring Strathcona will be holding a series of stitching circles in the coming months, leading towards the collective creation of a final art work which will live at the community centre. The dates for these circles are as follows: Tue. Oct 29 (7-9pm) – Activity Room (main floor), Thu. Nov 21 (7-9pm) – Multipurpose Room (2nd floor), Thu. Nov 28 (7-9pm) – Activity Room (main floor). Come join us!
Plants harvested from Cottonwood Community Garden were added to the piece.
Beautiful leaf!
Lots of young hands came and stitched with us!
Last week Treasuring Strathcona had the pleasure of joining Amy Walker for Artists’ Share at the Community Centre. We spent a joyful afternoon stitching on cloth that was collaboratively dyed & printed with plants harvested from the Strathcona Community Garden.
Passersby also added to an ongoing leaf rubbing project that holds botanical impressions from plants growing in the Strathcona and Cottonwood Community Gardens as well as MacLean Park and the eastern part of the neighbourhood. Plants tell us so much about the place we live in, they speak to the cultural and ecological complexity of this neighbourhood, from cedar, to tansy, to bamboo.
On September 21st the Strathcona Community Garden held their
annual Fall Harvest Festival. It was such a lovely afternoon spent in a beautiful
community space with live music, bread fresh from the cob oven, and remarkable knowledge
holders found throughout the garden. We hosted an activity table where we
explored natural dyeing, eco-bundling and plant rubbings.
Alex and Anna wanted to work with food and medicinal plants growing in
the garden space, so they harvested leaves and dug through the compost heap to
find source plants. These included: sunflower, goldenrod, rosemary, butternut,
apple, paw paw, persimmon, plum and many other plants and trees.
#Treasuring Strathcona will be a part of Strathcona Community Centre’s Artist Share series this Thursday (October 3) @ 3 – 6 pm. Come join us and help stitch together some of this remarkable place-making cloth.
Check out the gallery of images to see pictures of the cloth we
collectively dyed and printed!
Ongoing work with Stanley Park Ecology Society over the last year will culminate in a final installation session October 5th 1-4pm. Geared to youth from 13- 3o, can you join us?
Maclean Park Fieldhouse 710 Keefer St Register here $65 – materials extra as stated below
Janey will lead participants through the creation of their own unique projects, providing templates and patterns for a few simple projects, or, bring a clear idea of your own design.
These two sessions are a chance to work on your stitching; understanding simple methods of folding and piecing together small pieces.
This class does not include materials: finished salmon leather skins will be available for pre-purchase from Janey up to 10 days before class at $22 per skin, max 5 per student. An email with a paypal link for leather purchase will be sent out to registered participants on October 17. Those who purchase skins will receive them the first class. Participants are encouraged to take the leather making class and bring their own skins!
Hats or Bags? Make a vessel for your head, or for other useful things!
These two nights introduce basic seamless wet-felted construction using resists as well as stitching methods for joining and decorating with felt. Personal flare encouraged! Depending on the scope of project undertaken, participants can expect to work independently between sessions to complete the project and to choose a project within their time and skill capacity. This class does not include materials, for those not taking the wet felting class, felt will be available for sale by weight during class, expect $15-35 in cost. Please bring cash for the instructor.
EartHand Gleaners Society 