Youth Tapestry of Place
Fall 2020 Showcase
This Fall, six amazing youth participated in our Youth Tapestry of Place program. For eight weeks, we worked together to create eco-art projects, practice storytelling, and engage in self discovery and expression. Together, we thought about the following questions: How did we come to be here? What is our connection to the land? What does home mean to each of us? We invite you to reflect on these questions through the sharing of our digital showcase.
We are grateful to have been meeting and working together, in person, on the unceded and traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. During our first workshop, Senaqwila talked to us about her own Indigenous history, based in this area. She encouraged us to think about why we make land acknowledgements and how we can practice them. Acknowledging the land can show up in our daily lives. We can actively develop relationships to the land by observing the plants, animals, and seasons around us. We can examine our own relationships to place by learning about our personal histories. We can continue to learn about the traditional territories in which we reside.
Still Moon would like to thank and congratulate all six youth for completing this program and contributing their time, thoughtful reflections and artistic talent to our Tapestry of Place. We hope each participant learned something about themselves, built new skills and created friendships through this program.
We would also like to thank the artists and facilitators for taking the time to lead our workshops and share their knowledge with us.
Featuring Work By:
Adalia
Ash
Emily
Glorielle
Lina
Willow
Visiting Artists and Facilitators:
Senaqwila Wyss
Rosemary Hu
Nathaniel Marchand
Madelyn Read
Mendel Skulski
Ink Making
Nathaniel Marchand taught us how to make natural inks using blackberry and red cabbage. Together, we prepared and simmered red cabbage and carefully pressed blackberries to extract the colours from the leaves and berries. We each made 2 small dropper bottles of ink in different shades of purple. Nathaniel brought a collection of his own handmade inks in a variety of different colours for us to experiment with. The watercolour pieces featured here are a mix of the inks we made and Nathaniel’s inks. Next to each piece is a corresponding ingredients list of the inks used.




















Bundle Dyeing
Using pre-mordanted cotton, we created bundle dyes with a range of plants collected from the Renfrew Ravine area, Still Moon’s Colour Me Local Dye Garden and from around our homes including: maple leaves, oak leaves, cedar branches, orange peels, onion skins, elderberry leaves, St. John’s wort and calendula flowers. We tightly bundled our fabric around a stick and steamed each bundle. The resulting colours, outlines and shapes on our fabric are direct imprints from the environment around us.




Ivy Weaving
These baskets were woven from English ivy that was harvested from Renfrew Ravine. English ivy is an invasive species that was introduced to North America during colonization. It grows all year round, covering the forest floor of the Ravine and climbing up the trees. In the first week of our program Senaqwila asked us to imagine what this area would have looked like before colonization. English ivy would not have been found. This is a reminder that even the plants and animals that exist now might have been different a few hundred years ago. Here, we have used the ivy to create a useful object. Each basket has its own shape and design. Weaving was calming and enjoyable. Once we were in the pattern of ‘over, under, over, under,’ it was hard to stop!



Comics
With Rosemary Hu, we reflected on how we each came to be living here, right now, through writing and drawing exercises. These comics are explorations of our ancestral history – how we might relate to place through family. We talked about how family may also be found in friends, animals and the land. Everyone had different, unique stories to share; from thinking about traditional foods to memories of going to the temple. One of these comics gained a few rain drops on its way!





Sounds
We spent 3 weeks working with sound with Madelyn Read and Mendel Skulski. Sound is around us all the time. With Madelyn, we talked about different types of sound. Sound can be noise or music. It could come from nature or from human-made environments and technologies. Sound allows us to situate ourselves by signifying what is close to us and what is far away. With Mendel we worked with sound editing software to experiment with editing audio clips. We learned how to cut clips, create fades, and layer different sounds on top of each other. Our collected sounds include sounds found at home, sounds that might go with the themes of our comics, and music. What everyday sounds reflect a meaning of place to you?
Participant Reflections
Adalia
“I learned a lot the last few weeks from learning how to make dye from plants to learning how to make music. I loved learning all the creative arts we got to do, it was very exciting and everyone was very friendly and no judgement from anyone! Learning new things that we got to learn was interesting and I would definitely do it again! I’m very glad that I got to meet new people and come up with ideas together.”
Glorielle
“Reflection of time in the program: got me out of bed today when I’ve been feeling stuck for days due to depression and for that I am grateful. I am grateful for the opportunity to make art and socialize with others in-person. I live alone, so any bit of socialization I get is a blessing!
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