Social Fabric: A Community Rugmaking Festival

Pine Street, Florence, Northampton MA

30 November, 2022

Description

November 30th-December 30th Social Fabric is a collective art project, a community festival, and a fundraiser for the Food Bank of Western Mass. Over the course of a month, we will cocreate a large felt rug using colored scraps that artist, Jo Hesse, has collected throughout the year, as well as wool donated from local farmers, Barberic Farm, Brook’s Bend Farm, and The Hartsbrook School. Other fiber contributions are welcome as well. If you have bits of yarn, or wool odds and ends, bring them with you to include in the Social Fabric. A silent auction will be held for the finished rug, and all proceeds will be donated to The Food Bank. The first week of the project will be spent designing the surface and arranging the colors of the rug. Then we will move on to turning the wool into cloth. We will use traditional techniques that Jo learned in Turkey, to make high quality, durable felt. Feltmaking is by nature a particularly communal activity, utilizing shared rhythms and a dance-like coordination of bodies. The collaborative aspect is what Jo finds most exciting about her work—the moments of complete community—where creativity, physical activity, and resources are shared, and something is able to be produced that one person alone would never have had the capacity to do. We will be inviting percussionists and improvisational musicians to jam to the rhythm of our work, keeping the beat for the feltmakers, while creating another layer of spontaneous communal art. There will be plenty of ways to participate for people of all ages and abilities. Attendance is free, but please sign up for either a felt or music making slot so that we can keep group sizes manageable. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays 10:00-4:00 and Saturdays 2:00- 6:30 for the month of December To register email lol Jo at theramandtheworm at geemaildotcom