on display in the Teaching Shed (between 225 & 229 N Gilbert)

public event Saturday April 15, 5-7:30pm
a crochet workshop and smore-roasting party!

“Come Stay a While” is a large, immersive fiber arts environment. We play with light and shadow, vibrant colors, and texture to create an interactive, comfortable, accessible, warm space where joy can be found. As a collective of artists and members of the queer community, we found ourselves seeking spaces in which we can reconnect to and relive the joy of childhood. Anyone can experience healing through a child-like reconnection with joy and play. Crochet and other fiber arts media hold a certain type of "home-ness", a tether to the hearth, with which we can reconnect to childhood. 

 We recognize that both fiber artistry and joy are rebellious concepts. Slow crafts, like crochet, are antithetical to a world that prioritizes and necessitates mass-production; systems of power do not prioritize the creation of comfort. As stated by fiber artist Kendall Jade Ross, "It's just a craft until a man says it's art"--fiber art itself is often relegated to a sub-category because of its historical connection with femininity and womanhood. In the creation of an art piece that prioritizes joy and uses fiber art, we are working to rebel against systemic power. Use the space to sit and gossip, play a game, make something, drink a cup of tea, or whatever makes you happiest.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Quinlan Stafford is a fiber artist, writer, and earring collector. She started crocheting to keep her hands busy during Zoom classes and has never stopped, ever. 

Maura O’Dea (she/her) is an artist and poet from Cincinnati, Ohio. She is currently completing degrees in Spanish and English, and she stays busy in the meantime by crocheting silly things and looking at birds.

Margarita Rasgado López doesn't ever like things a normal amount. With knitting, it was love at first scarf. Trans rights are human rights.

Tamara-Jo Schaapherder (she/her) is truly so obsessed with crochet and is on her way to making it her whole personality. She is currently working behind the prepared foods section at the New Pioneer Coop and looking forward to the many sunny days on their way.

“When she read my name Weeping Willow out loud, she said she felt sad, too.”  

-Each Other’s Medicine.

Each Other’s Medicine  is an interactive story-installation of a retelling of the Greek myth of Persephone. This story is hand embroidered across and told by Weeping Willow, White Poplar, and Pomegranate, three plants that grew in the garden of the ancient Greek Underworld. The rhizomatic and nonlinear nature of plants is reflected in their storytelling; direct routes are rare. They want you to know about their friend, Persephone, and what happened when they met her. 

In the spirit of the oral storytelling tradition of Greek myths, Each Other's Medicine will close with a collaborative public reading of the story, led by Cicelia Ross-Gotta, at Public Space One June 26th at 4:00 pm.