Social Fabric

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 co-create 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.

A closing reception and auction will be held for the finished rug on Friday, January 27th at 6PM and all proceeds will be donated to The Food Bank. Our friend Melissa Ferrick, who recently played a show at Bombyx and fell in love with the project, has volunteered to emcee the auction. To get tickets and see more info about the event, click HERE.