East End Arts is pleased to introduce, TAPESTRY: Stitched Stories, the second season of a 6-month, hybrid art program for seniors! Please note that registration for this program has now passed, and the program is underway!
TAPESTRY: Stitched Stories
August 2023 – March 2024
Taking Place Online through Zoom, and In-Person at our Clubhouse!
ABOUT THE PROGRAM, TAPESTRY: STITCHED STORIES
TAPESTRY: Stitched Stories is a hybrid textile-based art program that includes up to 40 seniors from the east end of Toronto to try new textile art skills, learn basic digital literacy skills, and connect and get creative with other seniors! The program takes place over the course of six months – August 2023 to February 2024 – and features six monthly textile workshops, all led by different textile artist facilitators. Each month senior participants will work towards completing a panel (roughly 10X10″) that will demonstrate their new textile art skill in whatever way they choose. Throughout the program participating seniors will also receive a combination of creative prompts to help keep inspiration and creativity high to contribute to the completion of their panels.
While the majority of the program will take place online through Zoom workshops and Facebook group chats, there will also be volunteer-led meetups and fabric swaps where seniors can meet at St. Matthew’s Clubhouse to have conversations around textile practice and share insights with their peers. This program will also culminate with an in-person exhibition at St. Matthew’s Clubhouse where all of the panels from all of the workshops will come together to create six large-scale group tapestries for the community to see!
Our experience with the COVID-19 Pandemic has shown us the importance of remaining connected – digitally and otherwise – and our experiences working with seniors through past programs like Doorstop Diaries or the first season of TAPESTRY, have taught us that the arts are an incredible tool for creating that connection! This program is all about community connection, and we can’t wait to see what this cohort of senior artists creates!
To learn more about the first season of TAPESTRY, visit here.
ABOUT THE ARTIST FACILITATORS
Janet Hinkle
Printing: Textile Pattern Design Workshop,
September 8th, 2023
Janet Hinkle (she/her) is a mixed-race multidisciplinary artist with a practice rooted in both contemporary fine art and craft. With a fondness for mixing juxtaposing materials and a practice rooted in shared histories, she is driven to explore concepts involving identity. Pulling inspiration from both mid-century forms and futuristic design, her work manifests as installation, sculpture, gatherings, time-based media, and both human-food and human-flora interaction. She is also one third of studio.docx, a creative team that presents innovative contemporary art in public spaces to create unique community experiences. In addition to her creative practice, Janet Hinkle coordinates and curates art projects and artist capacity-building programs.
Sabine Spare
Natural Dyeing: Shibori Dyeing Workshop,
October 6th, 2023
After graduating from OCAD University with a Bachelor’s of Design in Material Art and Design specializing in Fibre, Sabine Spare began her career creating costumes and custom clothing. She worked as a seamstress and a cutter for Susan Dicks & Co creating elaborate couture garments. Spare was able to work with a small team to create costumes for notable productions such as It and Reign and celebrities like Nelly Furtado, Adam Sandler and Eugene Levy.
Branching off to launch her own brand, Spare Label, she specialized in creating small batch and custom clothing and accessories featuring an ancient surface design technique called marbling. Spare Label gained significant traction and has notably been featured in Toronto Makes, TrendHunter, Art Insider, Material District, Talente 2020 and Vogue Britain. Spare has collaborated with a diverse roster of clients including the Drake Hotel, Merrill House, Demmy, MakeJoy, Seed Learning Garden and MOCA Toronto.
Spare has participated in residencies both locally and abroad including Harbourfront Centre, Arquetopia in Mexico and Trama Textiles in Guatemala. She has taught sewing and textile art to youth, newcomers, hobbyists and professional artists. Moving forward, Spare hopes to continue working both independently and collaboratively, transforming creative visions into magical realities.
Morgan Kageshiongai
Inuit-style Tapestry Art Workshop,
November 3rd, 2023
I am a comic book artist and book maker who loves to work with paper and ink. The projects that I am best at teaching are the ones that show students how to make things that they will use later on, like sketchbooks, stamps and comics, rather than things that will decorate their home, like sculptures or wall art. I can help students work together while also being attentive to their personal learning experience, and I enjoy teaching the most when my students and I are laughing and having fun.
Camila Salcedo
Clothing Repair: Woven Darning & Visible Mending Workshop,
December 1, 2023
Camila Salcedo is a Venezuelan-born interdisciplinary artist currently based in Toronto working primarily in textiles, community arts and curation. Their work is centered on sustainable textiles, and interview-responsive community projects, such as the recent Clothing Clinic at the Oakwood Village Library and Arts Centre in 2022 through which members of the community got their clothes mended in exchange for a conversation, and Lived-in Room with Comadres (collaborative duo with denirée isabel) in 2022 through which they interviewed recent immigrants to Halifax and created a craft-based installation in response to objects from their homes at the Mary E Black Gallery. They also have eight years of experience as an art educator to diverse individuals and have taught workshops and courses at Lakeshore Arts, Rexdale Community Health Centre, the Bata Shoe Museum, the Textile Museum of Canada, Workman Arts, Xpace Cultural Centre, OCAD University, NSCAD University, and independently through various grant-funded programs via Canada Council, Art Starts and Art Reach. Additionally, they participated as a facilitator for TAPESTRY at East End Arts in 2022. They have participated in a number of textile residencies including Harbourfront Centre’s Craft and Design Textile Studio Residency, Arquetopia’s Backstrap Loom Weaving (Mexico) and Arquetopia’s Independent Residency(Peru).
Carolina Reis
Embroidery: Drawing with Threads Workshop,
January 5th, 2024
Born in Portugal and living for more than 25 years on Turtle Island, I am a Francophone visual artist, designer and curator based in T’karonto. I draw with threads and textiles and present my work like a traditional canvas painting. In this way, I try to give a new voice to the medium and reflect on gender and social issues. I am also fascinated with the ubiquity of virtual communications and intangible connections that links all living things. I turn this visible by creating immersive installation with intricate patterns and networks that extend into the space. Thus, I propose a different approach to the use of fibre and textile to raise awareness to aspects of our culture which go unnoticed but which condition our life. My hope is to awaken to new ways of seeing the world and share moments of wonder that enrich our everyday life.
Being socially and environmentally responsible in all parts of my work is important for me. I choose natural, recycled and local materials and produce zero waste as much as possible. I am always searching for ways to reduce my footprint. Ultimately, I aspire to render my activities completely neutral to the planet.
Johanna Thompson
Tapestry Weaving Workshop
February 2nd, 2024
Johanna Thompson is a multidisciplinary artist based in southwestern Ontario. She holds an MFA from York University and a BFA in photography from NSCAD University. She has exhibited work in Halifax and Toronto. Her work explores memory that is felt in the body and considers the ways the past is carried with us into the future. She employs craft techniques to engage with remembered and forgotten histories in an immediate, haptic way. Her practice attends to the sensorial and ephemeral nature of memory, and seeks to form tactile and emotional connections with the past. She has been weaving since 2015.
PHOTOS FROM OUR TAPESTRY: STITCHED STORIES EDITION
Come back to this webpage often, as we will update with new photos as the program progresses!
FUNDER OF TAPESTRY
