The Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance (SEFAA): New Fiber Arts Center in Georgia

There's a New Kid on the Block!

Written by:
 

Suzi Gough

President, Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance

Have you heard? The Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance (SEFAA) will be opening a fiber arts center in Atlanta this July. There will be low-cost artist studios and communal space for classes, meetings, exhibitions and informal gatherings. It will be a place for anyone interested in the fiber arts - individuals with a desire to learn a new skill, fiber artists who are expert in their field, organizations, businesses, educators, and collectors. It will be a place to connect, learn, create, share, and explore. It will be a place to engage the public, to inspire and support artists, to teach and display all aspects of the fiber arts, and to celebrate and perpetuate all fiber art forms. It will be your fiber art center.

TAFA Member, Leisa Rich, teaching a sewing class.

So, who is SEFAA? 

SEFAA is a 501(c)(3) that incorporated in July 2009 to provide a unique and all-encompassing fiber art experience. It is an alliance of all facets of the fiber art community who are collaborating and cooperating to foster the fiber arts. You can learn more about SEFAA at their website and their blog and on their Facebook and Twitter pages.


How can you support SEFAA? 
Volunteer, join, donate and spread the word.


• To volunteer, just email. A desire to help and a little spare time are the only job requirements. Right now SEFAA is looking for individuals to audit their 2010 accounts and to organize a fiber garage sale in May.
• To join, print out and mail in the membership form. Individual memberships are only $50 and are good for a full year from the date you join.
• To donate, click on Crowdrise, where we have a fundraiser for the SEFAA.

Spread the Word

SEFAA's goal is to raise $6,000 by April 1st through Crowdrise to finance minor renovations, to purchase tables and chairs and to ensure that they have adequate working capital prior to opening the SEFAA Center. As of today, they have raised $1,765. That means they need to raise $4,235 in the next 23 days to make this architect's rendering a reality.

Proposed space for the new fiber arts center.

Spreading the word is easy. Talk to your friends, blog about SEFAA, and post about SEFAA on your social media sites. Help SEFAA reach out and touch everyone interested in the fiber arts.
You already believe in the fiber arts community. Believe in the Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance and you'll be supporting both.

You'll be glad you did.

The Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance (SEFAA): New Fiber Arts Center in Georgia

Empty Bowls Project in Paducah

Empty Bowls Project, Paducah, Kentucky

The Empty Bowls Project is a really cool way to raise money for the hungry in a local community.  Michael Terra, local ceramic artist, has been the force behind this happening here in our town.  Tomorrow is the big event:  local area restaurants provide donated food for the handmade bowls that have been made for project supporters.  In other words, you get to eat a great meal in a cool bowl for $15.  Money raised goes to feed the hungry and you get to keep the bowl.

Such an event does not happen overnight.  Michael has been donating his time, energy, studio space, and kiln firings for months.  One of the great side effects of such a project is that people who never get to play with clay were able to come in and make their own bowls, many for the first the time.  A great way to meet new people, try a new medium, form community, and just have fun.

Event Details:  The Actual Event is on Feb 26th, 2011, from Noon- 5pm at the Robert Cherry Civic Center in Paducah, KY. Tickets are $15 each and entitle you to a handmade ceramic bowl and the wonderful food donated by the area restaurants.

Interested in replicating this event in your own community?  I'm sure Michael would be happy to share some tips.  You can also check out the Empty Bowls Project facebook page:

I'm sure that Michael would be happy to also accept donations from those who cannot attend.  Email Michael.

Mitch Kimball with his bowl donation.

Paducah is known for its quilts, but there is a vibrant community of artists here who work in many other mediums.  happens to be one of my favorites as I also worked with it for three years.  Someday it may happen again!  Michael travels all over to art festivals to sell his work.  Mitch Kimball, a dear friend, has a gorgeous website, and earns his keep as an art teacher in the Paducah school system (bending those minds at an early age...). 


Whatever the medium or skill level, art can be used as a powerful force to promote social change.  Kudos to all who have participated in the Empty Bowls Project!  These have been tough times and I know that your efforts will be greatly appreciated!

Empty Bowls Project in Paducah

TAFA Members Talk: Creativity Prevails in Ghana

Aba House gets a new wall, Ghana style!

by Ellie Schimelman

The village of Sumburigu is near Bolga in northern Ghana. In July three women from the village packed their bags with important things like crushed stones, dowadowa leaves and coal tar and took a very long bus ride to Accra where Belinda, the daughter of one of them joined them to travel to Aba House. Belinda was important because she was the interpreter - from fra fra to english.

The women were essiential because they were coming to paint our wall. Anyone can paint a wall, but not the way they do it. The first day the wall was chiseled and then plastered with a mixture of sand and cold tar. Traditionally cow dung is used, but coal tar served the purpose.
At the end of the fourth day we had a spectacular painted wall full of symbols relating to life in northern Ghana.

I asked the women to sign the wall (how western of me) and they each left a handprint (how african of them).

 Signing a painted wall in Ghana.

The women's names are Adintoge, Asinsoboro, and Adompoka. Two of the women really do paint their own houses with patterns. The third woman, although she participated and worked hard, was a ringer. I wonder how you say that in fra fra. An okra mouth reported on her. She wasn't going to miss this opportunity and I don't blame her. I'm glad I didn't miss it either. And next summer........ another wall.


And for the rest of the summer the Aba House kids made paper from sugarcane leaves, books, and our newest item- jewelry from the paper.

The kids are having a gallery show in Philadelphia next February.

One day, as everyone was scattered around working, three different people were singing three different songs in three different languages. Although English is the official language in Ghana, it certainly isn't  at Aba House. But somehow, it doesn't seem to matter. Creativity prevails.

Every summer we have interesting visitors. Anna from the African museum in Brussels came to buy a fantasy coffin. She added French to our language mix. Saundra, who actually spoke English, was coming back to Ghana after being there in the Peace Corps 46 years ago. Her stories about how things use to be are fascinating.  Greenie, a first grade teacher from Chicago, worked with some of our younger kids. After she left, one of the kids asked me if I would call the United States and have another teacher come work with them. Ah, if only it was that easy.
Greenie kept a blog while at Aba House: kidconnections

And next year: definitely another workshop with the house painters - our annual African textile workshop- possibly a tour to Burkina or Mali - lots of opportunities for artists and teachers - volunteer positions or just come rent a room and enjoy the ocean view.


The Cross Cultural Collaborative is a member of TAFA, The Textile and Fiber Art List.
Visit their member profile to find out more about this wonderful project.

TAFA Members Talk: Creativity Prevails in Ghana

Afghan Hands: Fashion Meets Economic Development in Kabul

Afghan Hands, and embroidery project, 

works with women in Kabul and Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

A friend of mine sent me an email about a BBC challenge which will award $20.000 plus publicity to a group that shows innovation and economic development at a grass roots level.  One of the groups nominated for these awards is Afghan Hands, an embroidery project that works with women in Afghanistan:

Afghan Hands was started by Matin Maulawizada, native of Kabul who has found great success in the fashion world as a make-up artist and as a cosmetics science expert for Neutrogena.  As I clicked around the website and blog, I was struck that Matin is one of the rare souls who can gracefully breach this immense divide our world suffers between the rich and the poor, the educated and the illiterate, the wasteful and the hungry.  How many of us can truly walk between these two worlds and both retain a sense of dignity while embracing the humanity of such different social situations?  It appears that Matin has this gift.  His writing is humble and honest and his vision for the women in Afghanistan is both realistic and empathetic.  Here is how he describes the mission of Afghan Hands:

Afghan Hands teaches skills to help Afghan widows gain independence, literacy, and a livable wages. At our centers in and around Kabul, women learn to create embroidered shawls and scarves, and the exquisite embroidery they make connects them to a wider world.

The centers are places to gather, study, and work. We pay the women to attend classes in the morning and embroider in the afternoon. Without this project, they could not educate themselves. Through Afghan Hands, they leave the walls of their compounds and attend seminars on basic human, legal, and religious rights. They prepare for work as free women do elsewhere in the world. This way, no one will ever imprison them in the name of law, honor, or religion.

We are a nonprofit organization. We are also linked to the Mirmon Orphanage. Our mutual efforts keep expenses as low as possible so that the funds we raise go to women and children.

In the future, we hope to establish small parks and playgrounds for children who now live in areas devastated by wars, drought, and environmental damage. We envision green havens where words of encouragement and hope are shared.

For now, Afghan women, by their own hands, are transforming their lives. This is our mission. Thank you for your interest in them and in their one-of-a-kind handmade pieces.

The main product lines produced by these women are stunning embroidered shawls, both cotton and pashmina wool, many of which find inspiration in the Suzani motifs traditional in Uzbekistan.  The embroidery is impeccable.  The shawls range from around $150-$1000.  One of the things I really appreciate about the project is this choice to produce quality pieces instead of churning out chotchkies that might be more easily accessible to the general public, but which would not showcase the expertise these women have with their embroidery skills.  Projects like this do a great service to preserving traditional skills while providing the technical assistance to reach an audience that can support quality, handmade embroidery.  Here are a couple of samples that can be found on their website:

 

Pashmina embroidered shawls, available at Afghan Hands.

 Crinkled cotton shawl by Afghan Hands

Of course, what delighted me the most, was that the women are paid to both study in the morning and embroider in the afternoon.  I am a firm believer that education is the way out of poverty.  Women who can educate themselves have a much greater access to finding their voice in all areas of their life: socially, politically, and as full members of their family and social units.

 Women studying, Afghan Hands.

I often struggle with justifying my years of work in the handicraft field.  With so much hunger in the world, ecological disasters looming, and critical need on so many levels, I sometimes wonder why I spend my time and energy in marketing things that nobody really needs.  Yet, I find redemption over and over again when projects like Afghan Hands give testimony to the healing power these crafts have in the communities where they are made.  I believe that we need the physical beauty these crafts bring into our lives, the connection we can have with the people who made them.  But, the actual process of making things also serves as a therapy which can help rebuild the broken lives in war torn areas like Kabul.  People like Matin are the best peace ambassadors we can ask for.  They open the paths of communication between people who would never have had a connection otherwise.  The women purchasing the shawls learn about the women who made them, and the women who made them likewise expand their world views in learning about markets, design, and value.  Self-esteem grows.  We are no longer strangers to each other.

Visit Afghan Hands, support them in whatever way you can (they also accept donations), and vote for them in the BBC challenge.

All of the photos in this post belong to Afghan Hands and are on their website.

Afghan Hands: Fashion Meets Economic Development in Kabul

Summer Art Project at The Williamson Art Gallery: Rag Rugging

Rag Rugging Project at The Williamson Art Gallery

by Alison Bailey Smith

The aim for the project was to produce a wall hanging for Wirral Methodist Housing using donated clothing with several tenants from the organization contributing to the creation of the piece. I decided that as the funding was coming from a housing association that a house would be a great communal theme to work on. At the same time as working on this project, I was also teaching a project with kids from 8 to 15 creating a Time Machine based on H.G. Wells' Time Machine.

Detail of Alison Bailey Smith's Rag Rugging Project

We have used a hessian backing and two different rag rugging techniques to create bricks to combine together into a house. I learned the rag rugging technique in the week before from the internet, from books , from advice from an old college friend and my second in-command fellow Oxton Artist, Janine Suggett, (we exhibit once a year in the Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead, North West of England). The idea of having individual bricks was to allow the women to work at their own speed, take the work away from the workshops to work on at home or to use a different technique, it also allowed the ladies to work without straining their backs or eyes. Many of these ladies remembered making rugs with rags after the war. Most of the ladies have picked up the technique easily, some had previously created rag rugs in slightly different methods and seem to enjoy the opportunity to do it again. Some with arthritis found it hard to keep it up for awhile, so tea offered a welcome break.

Assembling Alison Bailey Smith's Rag Rugging Project

I think the main benefits of the workshops were being able to sit together as a group talking and working on a collective project, providing health benefits - both mental and physical. Many of them have re-arranged plans to be there, as well as taking work away to be completed at home, contributing extra “bricks” in knitting and rag rugging.

Detail of Alison Bailey Smith's Rag Rugging Project

The concept of the house for the hanging was already vaguely in place prior to them arriving, it developed as we have discussed it to in-corporate other techniques than rag rugging, slightly faster techniques done at home. We also incorporated some of the donated clothing as appliqué (flowers from the wedding dress, some fabric as curtains), I later incorporated images of the ladies working on the piece into the wall hanging. During the workshop, one of the participants donated a fabric tape measure. I used it along with a tape measure from my Granny's things to edge a primed canvas that we put behind the door and all the participants later signed it. It was wonderful to combine everyone's memories from the clothes - political t-shirts, ties from weddings, hats from holidays, fabric from first homes etc.

Detail of Alison Bailey Smith's Rag Rugging Project

The group created everything we needed for the hanging to come together during the workshops but it took 3 more days of work to create it into the wall hanging. There were many components that needed to be attached to the backing and needed some creative thinking to get it to all work together, next time I would limit the colour palette available . The extra work was done at my house with lots of help from Janine Suggett, Cathy Warren, Sylvia Davie and Briget. Using many of my own resources at home, thread, fabric, printable canvas, sewing machine etc. Perhaps next time we could do it over 2 weeks, one to create the parts and the second to pull it together. As well as feeling very moved by all the ladies and their enthuisiasm, I also was very touched by being able to use many of my Granny's sewing things. She died in March and I asked my Dad if I could have her fabric and sewing things, she made many of her own clothes as many women did of her generation and took real care in looking after every scrap of fabric. I hope she would be proud of our project.

Alison Bailey Smith

Her work has spanned almost 2 decades and three different countries since leaving Edinburgh College of Art in 1990. The motivation behind Alison’s work comes from being the child of post war parents, Scottish thriftiness and an avid watcher of Blue Peter! Her need to re-use, re-develop and re-create can be seen in her wide use of ordinary materials with extra-ordinary results.

Although her training was initially in Jewellery and silver-smithing, she has crossed over successfully into the world of textiles, costume and fashion – evident in her numerous awards (Scottish Fashion Designer of the Year, Recycling Fashion Designer of the Year and various awards for Fibre in North America and Australasia).

Alison’s staple ingredient in her work is wire that she reclaims from old televisions, the older the better. She has found over a hundred different colours and hues of copper and aluminium wire. Lately though, due to the rate of development in technology, she is finding it harder to find the old television sets and has had to resort to buying various colours of wire! There is always a high component of re-used materials in her work - whether it is re-using charity shop finds or sweetie wrappers to get the right colour. She has become increasingly aware of how wasteful our society is becoming and has started working with plastic packaging with a range of "Junk Jewellery".

Visit Alison's website, blog, and her great collection of photos on Flickr!

Wire Hat by Alison Bailey Smith

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Summer Art Project at The Williamson Art Gallery: Rag Rugging