EartHand Gleaners Society

January Winter Willows 2017

December 9, 2016

This January we’ll be hosting two opportunities to learn about tending and working with the extraordinary SALIX (willow) family:

1/ WOVEN ARCH WORKPARTY!

All are Welcome

Bring a snack to share and a cup for tea.

Help bring in the Willow crop at MOP. Learn about coppicing methods for annual harvests, rose twist knots for bundling, and try your hand at willow splitting.

Dress for the weather, rain or shine! Participants can leave with a small bundle of willow for personal projects.

Saturday January 14 10am-2pm

Means of Production Garden- corner of East 6th and St Catherines, Vancouver

2/ Working Willow: From Harvest to Fence and Woven Form: A Workshop

Willow is an extraordinary weaving material traditionally used anywhere it grows; and with numerous varieties cultivated for many different applications This two-day intensive begins with the harvesting process, touches on weaving with living willow, and culminates in making a Catalan-style tension tray. This workshop is outdoors rain or shine: dress for the weather. Tea is served.

Instructor: Sharon Kallis

Saturday 21 January – at Means of Production Garden 10-am-1pm

Harvest willow in the garden. Learn about stewardship and sustainable harvest methods of pollarding and coppicing. Demonstration of planting clipped willow whips for creating woven fences and other living structures. Participants leave with a small bundle of willow for personal use.

Sunday 22 January- at Trillium North Park- 10am-1.30pm (under shelter, outdoors)

Day two involves weaving a tension tray from our local willow. Weaving experience is helpful, but not required, some hand strength is an asset. The small woven trays are beautiful and useful objects, and the method taught is based on the traditional Catalan form.

$80- EartHand members

$90 -non members

max 12 participants
Soil to Sky – one very last event…

October 29, 2016

It’s almost hard to imagine that the time is upon us, but here it comes: the very last Soil to Sky event, the Final Celebration on Saturday November 5.

We’ve all learned so much from this project. It didn’t go off the way we expected, but we took the twists and turns with good grace, and found unexpected gifts on the path — new skills, new friends, new ways of working together.

We hope you’ll come out and join us. We’ll have kite making, for sure; whether we get to fly will depend on the weather, but we’ve been graced with sunny November skies in past years!

We’ll also have music courtesy of the Hastings Street Band; a warming Tea Tent (with rumours of a vegan-friendly nettle soup courtesy of an executive chef friend of ours…); and a chance to learn to crochet on the fence for the Festoonery project, and try out spinning on our new Walking Wheel and see the Rain Catcher.

Our Final Celebration is also part of the amazing Heart of the City Festival.
Final Celebration November 5th

October 27, 2016

Worlds collide in the best creative way possible on Saturday November 5th as we celebrate the end of the Soil to Sky Project during the Heart of the City Festival at Trillium North Park from 1- pm- Rain or Shine!

Including:

Assembling the final kites with the pieces made over the last 6 weeks at community harvest celebrations, the installation of Melodie Flook’s Festoonery fence crochet project, Arlin ffrench’s walking wheel shall be in motion, the Hastings Street Band will be playing, we will gather Words for Birds to send up to the sky on a kite or two and we will have a warming and nourishing tearoom.

If weather cooperates we will fly kites too!

From Soil to Sky- hope you can join us.

here are a few favourite photos of what we have done so far….

want to see more photos? check out this flickr link.

Trillium North Park is located at the corner of Malkin and Thornton Streets on the south edge of Strathcona neighbourhood.
Realms of Refuge

September 29, 2016

If you want to go fast, go alone;

If you want to go far, go together.

We believe that building community and caring for each other is the most important work that we undertake. It is why we teach, why we collaborate and bridge and convene circles of makers; why we make by hand, so that we can share with each other as well as with our ancestors; and why we aspire to know the impact of our actions and art practices, and walk a path of social and ecological justice.

We’re inspired in this work by other organizations, including Jumblies Theatre, Vancouver Moving Theatre, and Maybelle Arts.

Sharon is going to be working on aspect of Vancouver Moving Theatre and Jumblies Theatre’s upcoming project in Vancouver: Realms of Refuge. Create alongside her at the Drop-In Art Making sessions on October 20 and 21, 1-4pm; at the session on Thursday October 27, 6:30-8:30; and at the Opening, Saturday October 29, 4-6pm.
PROJECT:Weaving Our Social Fabric

August 23, 2016

Announcing a new project for the Fall of 2016 at Trillium North Park.

Three local artists, Melodie Flook, David Gowman and Arlin ffrench, will be joining us at our work space at Trillium. The group projects to be undertaken include collaborative fence weaving using local plants (Festoonery), a handmade rain catchment system carved from local trees (Rain Collectors) and a walking-spinning wheel for ongoing community use.

These site-enhancement projects will add to our ongoing creation of a beautiful, inspiring and “made-by-hand’ environment; an oasis of creativity and community in this urban, industrial and reclaimed green-space.

All of these projects have room for community participation!

Festoonery: with Melodie Flook

Throughout September 6-8 pm Mondays and Thursdays

Thurs Sep 15th, 22nd, 29th and Mon Sep 19th, 26th

The project includes instruction in rope-making, crocheting, knitting and lace patterning.

All dates are at Trillium North

Rain Collectors: with David Gowman

Throughout September 1-5pm Sundays 11th, 18th, 25th

all dates are at Maclean Park Fieldhouse- 710 Keefer Street, installation at Trillium TBA

Over the course of three Sundays in September, a rain collection system, made from locally grown/harvested wood, will be built and installed by volunteer participants at Trillium North Park.

Stage one: Shaping. Using advantageous, pre-bisected empresswood staves, gutters can be hollowed using gouges and mallets. Brackets for mounting can be cut and shaped using hand tools (pull saws, coping saws and chisels).

Step two: Sealing. Once the parts are shaped, a layer of oil-based sealant is applied to the waterway (in this case, a bright red for aesthetic appeal). Upon curing, a further layer of varnish is applied to all parts prior to installation.

Step three: Installation. The Rain Collector Project is installed using common hardware (stove bolts and pipe clamps). Anchor holes are drilled into the shipping container walls. Brackets are mounted with wooden backings on the inside of the container. The gutter race down to the rain barrel is mounted onto the fence using wooden brackets, wood screws and pipe clamps.

Walking Spinning Wheel: with Arlin ffrench

Arlin is working with a group of spinners as collaborative consultants in the community to create the wheel. Public work dates tba, spinning demonstrations at Final Celebration October 1st

All of this joint action by participants coming together to work- the time spent in this common pursuit- is the physical action of how we weave our social fabric. Working together in the park we are turning industrial shipping containers into a creative meeting place that fits our aspiration of building a third place – the ‘community outdoor living room.’

FOR CULTURE DAYS: Join us Saturday October 1st from 1-4pm to participate in the Festoonery project, sample the walking wheel and see the new rain catchment system in place!

Thanks to Vancouver Park Board: Neighbourhood Matching Fund for making this project possible.
Blackberry Butterfly Net- Community Project

August 14, 2016

Our whirlwind series of nights at Richmond’s Bridgeport Industrial Park wrapped up this last week with a final celebration of the art work made and now installed on site.

Blackberry/Butterfly Net

This temporary sculptural installation is made from invasive blackberry vines harvested from the Bridgeport Industrial Park. Inspired by childhood memories of running in a field with a butterfly net, the artist Sharon Kallis embarked on a creative process exploring the nature of hooped forms, working with seasonal materials. The blackberry fibre rope that comprises the work was made by many local people who participated in a series of artist-led workshops, and the installation is presented in gratitude to the many hands and voices of the community that led to its creation.

Commissioned as part of the Pollinator Pasture project, Emily Carr University of Art + Design in partnership with the City of Richmond.

Thank you to the people who brought their hands and voices to this work.

Jaymie Johnson as project assistant and Kathleen Cathcart as a dedicated rope maker as well as: T. Hesketh, C.Cartiere, N. Strauss, L. Egan, F.Egan, A.Egan, A. Hanemaayer, A. Knowlson, Neena, Nihal, Simarpreet, Marian, B. Jones, Tracy, Amy, K.M Cho, E. Udal, L. Douglas, E. Yon, R.Graham, J.Macdonald, N.Collins, S. Ze, M. Smetzer, L. Smetzer, C. Damian, E. Sarvi, K. Emami, R. Williams, B. Campbell, M. Dee, K. Dee, R. Dee, C. Lam, C. Lam, B.Lam, A. Boomgaardt, M. Boomgaardt, Z. Cilliers, L. Weidenhammer and D. Gowman.

and thanks to the City of Richmond Operations staff for installation assistance.

Lori Weidenhammer was our guest speaker on the last work night, and writes beautifully about her experience in the project here.

The artwork and project intention literally came together that last night- as we are eating the fruit of this exquisite invasive that many both love and loath. Though invasive, the fruit is delicious, the bush provides habitat for many birds and is also a prime pollinator food source- and the fibre was used for weaving traditional beeskeps in Ireland. Using wax from Hives for Humanity ( a gift from the bees) we preserved the rope made from the fibres, and ate berries. The natural cycle for which we are a part- and the net to which we are tied- could not have been more obvious.

The final celebration took place on August 13 2016

for more photos of this project visit flickr

more about this project can be found here
Math and Rope

August 14, 2016

Our feelings about rope-making range from mild enthusiasm to deep conviction and fanaticism — and we’ll be the first to admit, it’s an esoteric pursuit.

But believe it or not, there are more rope-making evangelists like us out there. Historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, mathematicians and physicists — they’re coming at it from some pretty amazing, intellectual places.

Our board member Susan Gerofsky is a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at UBC. With the help of the EartHand Gleaners and Oncle Hoonki’s Fabulous Horn Shop, she and her crew created a short film about rope-making and helical structures that was screened at the Bridges Math and Art Conference in Jyväskylä, Finland. Check it out on Vimeo here.
Tea Party and Project Celebration!

August 13, 2016

Join us

Saturday August 13th

1-4pm

at the Richmond Pollinator Pasture

in Bridgeport Industrial Park

Iced nettle tea, and other light refreshments served in the pasture under the crochet tea tent. See the final sculpture installed. Featuring musical duet by Mr. Fire-Man playing a hand-made wooden horn and Jamie Macdonald on ukulele.

how to find us?

By Transit: An 8 minute bus trip from Aberdeen Skytrain station. Take the #410 22nd St. Station bus to Cambie Community Centre. The bus stop located on # 3 Road directly under the Skytrain line.

By Car: Park at the Cambie Community Centre located at 12800 Cambie Road.

From Cambie Community Centre:

Cross Cambie Street at the pedestrian crossing and the footpath for Bath Slough is straight ahead, take the path on the right of the slough, and walk 10-15 minutes. Turn left when the path ends, cross the little bridge and you are in the pasture. We will meet and work near the Apiary located at this end of the pasture.

All other project info you might like is here when you scroll down the project page….
Weaving our Social Fabric

August 11, 2016

With EartHand in residence at Trillium North Park, partnering with the Vancouver Park Board, our community is setting a new precedent in the management of urban parks. This is one of the first city parks in North America where community members can participate in making projects using materials gathered and processed right in the park itself!

Strathcona is a rich and diverse area with a very high concentration of artists and mavericks, bucking the main stream trends and cultivating all kinds of art and liveliness in the neighbourhood. To honour that spirit and make Trillium Park more rich and welcoming, our projects on site have been enhancing the infrastructure with things like the EarthLoom and the Pollinator House. This summer, with funding from the Vancouver Park Board’s Neighbourhood Matching Fund, artists David Gowman, Melodie Flook, and Arlin ffrench have been leading aspects of the ‘Weaving Our Social Fabric’Project, so-called because it brings together the carvers, spinners and gardeners who have been some of our most enthusiastic program supporters over the past few years.

David Gowman has been leading the design and carving of a custom set of Rain Catchers to channel rainwater from the roofs of our containers to a rain barrel in the dye garden; Melodie Flook has been teaching rope-making far and wide, to collect enough rope so that our chain link fences can become transformed and softened by a crocheted installation; and Arlin ffrench has been designing and building a wall-mounted walking wheel — a kind of spinning wheel — that the spinners in the crowd will be lining up to try when it’s unveiled on October 1st.

This is an extraordinarily rich experience for us and we look forward to the years to come.

WEAVING OUR SOCIAL FABRIC – Final Celebration – Trillium North Park, corner of Malkin & Thornton – 1-4pm Saturday October 1st
Porchapalooza!

July 26, 2016

Wednesday August 3rd is

Porchapalooza at Trillium North Park!

6-11pm

Bring something for the potluck dinner at 6pm, plate and cutlery, water bottle and picnic blanket or camping chair are also encouraged.

We will have a community weaving/ rope making project going to keep hands busy while we listen to the tunes of the Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra and at dusk the Iris Film Collective will show some short films on outdoor screens.

A mid summer party!