I just wanted to make clear that this is not a blog in the regular sense. I do not add entries or update periodically.
What I wanted to do with this site was to offer up ideas on how to strengthen community ties through creative activities and to create win-win-win situations in the most creative ways possible.
Please read through the entries listed as archives to see what this is all about. And please feel free to contact me with comments or questions!
Do the creative handwork you love -- share the process with others in your community whom you would not otherwise have met -- brainstorm ways to carry the creativity forward to other individuals or groups -- strengthen community ties using this vehicle of creative work/play -- and share your ideas and experiences with others so that they may try it themselves!
How to make contact
It occurs to me that making contact for the face-to-face portion of a project may be the biggest hurdle -- and it is one of the first things to do. So here are some thoughts on how to do that. Of course, every community is different, and this list is not exhaustive. Keep in mind that the objective is to bridge one or more divide in the community.
- Call the volunteer coordinator at nursing homes or hospitals.
- Call the central coordinating group (e.g. Scout Council) for established groups like Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts.
- School District offices can put you in touch with art teachers, drama teachers, guidance counselors, parent-teacher groups, etc. You may have a particular school in mind or the district office might be able to direct you to a school that has a propensity for community projects.
- Remember, the object is to bridge a divide in your community -- across income, race, religion, age, etc. The point is to get us out of our normal circles so that we may interact with folks who are different from us.
- Local United Way or Community Chest offices can put you in touch with local non-profit organizations. The non-profits may be able to put you in touch with individuals or groups.
- Local ministerial or other faith-based organizations can point you to congregations, adult and youth groups.
- Homeless shelters, halfway houses, transitional housing groups may welcome folks coming in.
- Your elected community leaders will know large numbers of local people.
- City and county offices may know of local organizations that aren't readily apparent.
- Service/civic organizations such as Rotary, Kiwanis, veterans' organizations and auxiliaries are a possibility.
- Day Care Center directors might be able to use a simple project as an activity. And remember that there are now day care centers for the elderly.
- Remember, the object is to bridge a divide in your community -- across income, race, religion, age, etc. The point is to get us out of our normal circles so that we may interact with folks who are different from us.
- Look in the telephone book yellow pages under "Service Organizations."
- Your community may have a local professional organization of volunteer coordinators and/or non-profit professionals.
- Local businesses and industries may have service clubs made up of employees.
- Librarians know how to look up anything! Talk with them. They want to help you.
- Take a walk around town. If you see someone knitting or writing or sketching or playing an instrument, start a conversation!
- Remember, the object is to bridge a divide in your community -- across income, race, religion, age, etc. The point is to get us out of our normal circles so that we may interact with folks who are different from us.
- The more you call around canvassing for your particular bridge, the more people will hear about your ideas and the concept of strengthening community ties through creativity. Work out a concise summary of what you want to do so that folks will gain a quick understanding.
- Remember, the object is to bridge a divide in your community -- across income, race, religion, age, etc. The point is to get us out of our normal circles so that we may interact with folks who are different from us.
What happens if you are not part of a group? What if you, as an individual, want to start a Community Handworks project?
- Can you teach a creative activity that you enjoy? It doesn't need to be formal; it doesn't need to be in front of a large group.
- Can you brainstorm ideas? Can you dream?
- Start calling from the above list. See if you can find a group or a few other individuals to help you plan a project.
- Make an object (or any creative offering) yourself and start a challenge. If you already have a plan and/or an object, it may be easier to gather others to participate in the next stage. (See my first project - "Metaphors Abound.")
- Remember, the object is to bridge a divide in your community -- across income, race, religion, age, etc. The point is to get us out of our normal circles so that we may interact with folks who are different from us.
I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people convinced that they are about to change the world. I am more awed by...those who...struggle to make one small difference after another.
--Ellen Goodman
The Basics
Here is the basic concept as I see it:
- A Community Handworks project deliberately and consciously REACHES OUT across one or more "division" in the geographic community - age, class, race, religion, income, etc.
- It strives for more than one "win." By reaching out, we create or teach something that can then be used by or for something that will help something/someone else. The challenge is to PLAN for that WINNING CHAIN to continue as far and as long as possible. One person or group hands it off to another and another...
- It involves HANDMADE processes. Handcrafted items are as essential as the face-to-face process of making them. The time and effort to create something imbues a meaning that should not be ignored.
- It involves FACE-TO-FACE creation (folks gathering who might not otherwise have met) and ANONYMOUS DONATION (recipients given items handcrafted by anonymous members of the community). In this way, folks who participate in creativity sessions may get to know new folks, and recipients may be given the gift of privacy as well as the joy of knowing only that someone out there in the community gave time and effort to create the item.
- Although selling or auctioning items to raise money for a cause is always a possibility, these activities tend to end a winning chain rather than continue it. Community Handworks projects should strive to add links before bringing money into the picture.
- My ideal project would also include a handwritten journal that includes the handwriting of everyone involved in the chain. And this book should find a resting place somewhere that would be accessible later (not stuck at the back of a bookshelf of someone who happens to end the chain.) The journal itself becomes a handmade item with the potential of starting a new chain.
- The creative process is always flexible. Plans for the winning chain of events will change along the way. But the intention to reach out and across should always be present.
It is entirely possible that many Community Handworks efforts may wither after the enthusiasm of the initiator fades away. I don't see that as a failure as long as some part of the plan is carried out. It is hard for a winning chain to continue between people who have lives to live. But the real challenge is to push that winning chain outward. By doing that, we reach across more and more peoples' experiences and knit more and more cohesion in the community.
An Imagined Example
A group of adult artists or crafty friends invites a similar group from 'across a divide' to make a small set of handmade objects from donated or found materials. They pass these objects on to a high school drama club in yet another part of town. The drama club writes an original children's theatre script inspired by the objects. They recruit another group to help them perform the play at a children's shelter or nursing home. The newly recruited group then takes over, and they lead the children (or seniors) in a craft activity inspired by the play. These new objects are donated to the cancer hospital. The original inspiration pieces can then be spun off to another group... And possibly the entire process can be documented by a photography or videography class. The images can then...
The point is to make use of creativity to benefit someone else AND to build community ties across groups of people who might not ordinarily interact. The point is not to bring these folks together to discuss difficult issues; rather, they come together via two things they have in common - being members of a geographic community and having an interest in being creative.
If anyone reading this has other ideas, please share them! I would especially love to hear from folks involved in fine art and performing art and from folks who work with so-called "harder" materials - wood, metal, etc.
Email me at communityhandworks yahoo.com (add the @).
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single minute before starting to improve the world.
-Anne Frank
Origin of the idea
A few years ago I moved to a house that could not accommodate my sofa. It was a good sofa, in decent shape for being 10 years old. I would have kept it, but it did not fit in my new living room. I tried to donate it to the local thrift stores. None would take the donation. I tried to donate it to shelters, halfway houses, upholstery shops. I tried to sell it. Nothing.
I started noticing upholstered furniture abandoned everywhere. Chairs and couches were along the sides of the roads. They were piled up outside the fences and parking lots of the thrift stores that told me not to bring mine. The landfills and dumps were overflowing with overstuffed furniture, most of which - I assumed - was in decent shape before landing in the dump.
I started dreaming up ways to save both the furniture and the landfill space. Consider: Conduct a training class in upholstery for folks who are struggling. Use the donated sofa as class project. Use donated fabric for the new covering, if possible. It's a win-win-win. Landfill saves space; I dispose of my sofa; sofa is used toward a good purpose; folks get trained in a new skill; and the newly upholstered sofa can be sold to help support the classes or donated to Habitat or transitional housing.
And that got me wondering how many winning links I could add. Would it be possible to extend the winning chain more broadly into the community? How far could a single chain extend?
So the challenge of Community Handworks is to design for your community a winning chain that is as long (or as branching) as possible. The goal of Community Handworks is to allow diverse members of your community to engage in creative handwork while also building a stronger sense of community.
As we walk across the Harbor Bridge/ We reach across the years/ We reach across our differences/ We reach across our fears/ We reach into the mystery/ As we seek to understand/ The meaning of our history/ We must each extend a hand
Chorus of a song about a march of reconciliation in Sydney, Australia
© 2000 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP)
From the CD “The Greatest Story Never Told” by John McCutcheon, Red House Records 2002
I started noticing upholstered furniture abandoned everywhere. Chairs and couches were along the sides of the roads. They were piled up outside the fences and parking lots of the thrift stores that told me not to bring mine. The landfills and dumps were overflowing with overstuffed furniture, most of which - I assumed - was in decent shape before landing in the dump.
I started dreaming up ways to save both the furniture and the landfill space. Consider: Conduct a training class in upholstery for folks who are struggling. Use the donated sofa as class project. Use donated fabric for the new covering, if possible. It's a win-win-win. Landfill saves space; I dispose of my sofa; sofa is used toward a good purpose; folks get trained in a new skill; and the newly upholstered sofa can be sold to help support the classes or donated to Habitat or transitional housing.
And that got me wondering how many winning links I could add. Would it be possible to extend the winning chain more broadly into the community? How far could a single chain extend?
So the challenge of Community Handworks is to design for your community a winning chain that is as long (or as branching) as possible. The goal of Community Handworks is to allow diverse members of your community to engage in creative handwork while also building a stronger sense of community.
As we walk across the Harbor Bridge/ We reach across the years/ We reach across our differences/ We reach across our fears/ We reach into the mystery/ As we seek to understand/ The meaning of our history/ We must each extend a hand
Chorus of a song about a march of reconciliation in Sydney, Australia
© 2000 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP)
From the CD “The Greatest Story Never Told” by John McCutcheon, Red House Records 2002