Weaving Home and Community

A community art project in partnership
with the Madison Public Library - Hawthorne Branch

The act of making is the intersection of effort, perseverance, failure, creative problem solving, and something coming into being. Informed by our ideas of home and community, Middle Schoolers from Girls Inc. of Greater Madison wove recycled metal hangers using fabric donated by the Madison community.

We met six times, once a week, for one hour. The girls looked forward to starting each workshop with cookies and juice provided by the Youth Services Librarian and project coordinator, Tracy Moore. After a quick snack, we gathered around a table and talked about what Home meant to us. The girls wrote or drew their answers on blank sheets of paper.

After 10 minutes of drawing and writing prompts, the girls engaged in making. On the first day, they sorted and organized all the used fabric by color.

During the second workshop, the girls prepared their looms using metal hangers and wire for the warp “thread”. They also cut the fabric into thin strips, making their weft “thread”.

The girls learned how to weave during the following workshops. Using the recycled fabric strips, they created their own woven homes.

On the last day, as we celebrated their artwork, we sat and talked about our favorite memories of home.

To conclude this project, I made an artist book using the left over recycled fabric. I beat the cotton remnants into a pulp and with it made handmade paper embedded with the thread that frayed from the fabric strips. After scanning all of the girls’ writing and drawing prompts, I printed them over the handmade paper sheets. This artist book documents the heart and soul of this project and reminds us that our stories of home, when shared, can build a beautiful community.