Showing the work

We have exhibited the work in two venues - one, the Arts Festival in the community, and at a conference called "The Art of Public Health". Each has been rewarding for us and multiple conversations have been generated. The work of the quilt - when viewed in public becomes a complex metaphor - for the structural inequities that women who are insecurely and unhoused experience, as well as the gorgeous community that has been created over cups of tea. The quilt becomes performative. And this is something I must consider.... It performs the wish for the domestic as well as its denial in the lives of women living in shelters. But I will close with a wish that we bear witness to the words from the women, as quoted above.... 

"we are doing beautiful things here"

We are working toward the banners... half way to our goal with funding.... and it will feel good to have a project produced that has the potential to shift perceptions and attitudes.... there are misconceptions about who is homeless... and part of what this project is doing is attempting to understand more of the social inequities.

We hope the banners will draw people closer to the building.... to this community....

provisional banner design

The Feast

We are about to take a break for the summer months from the main work at the shelter. We will spend the time building community by having events like films in outside venues. And maybe a knit in or two... spontaneous.

The feast - it was indeed a feast! So much food. Many cooks in the kitchen with knives and bowls and kale and mango and goat and rice and oh-so-much-more. We cooked and ate for what seemed hours. When asked if I had brought my camera I said "no".  I did not stop to take photographs as documentation because I wanted to really just be there. I figured the documentation could be this writing.

Many of the women in the kitchen have not cooked their own food for years. They exist with limited choice over their food options - they have eaten what has been provided by shelters, soup kitchens, and food banks. This was different. We cobbled together a menu from different continents and made a grocery list. And a task list - some of the women did not want to cook a dish but wanted to just be in the kitchen helping out. Washing dishes, cutting vegetables, stirring pots. It didn't matter.

The smells of the preparation brought many of the workers through. They laughed and chatted with the women.

This group of women are awesome - I have been able to work alongside of them, individually and collectively and I remain uncertain as to why it takes years and decades to find housing. That will be a subject for later contemplation...

A beautiful hand knitted bicycle seat sweater made by one of the members of the art group. I think this would be a great item to sell at the Junction Arts Festival which is going to be all hand made arts and crafts this year.

"to be flying is not to be in it"

This is one of the women who spoke about flying and what it meant in her life. "To be flying is not to be in it". So simple and strong. For her to act as if flying was transformative and placed her "not in it".
I am so excited by this work, and so happy when I go to visit and make art. Art becomes this wonderful circle, where, at times, the actual making occurs between us, through conversation.... And then I think of all of the wonderful feminist, conceptual artists...

Yesterday was a day of comic errors. I had baked muffins but did not have the key (turns out it was in my possession)... Showed up with the idea that we could at least eat muffins, if nothing else. We tracked down a worker who was kind enough to open a cupboard and the kitchen - so we had tea with our snack. And some beads. But this gave us also an extended period of time in which we could really begin to explore the banner production.

This is a sneak preview of the banner again! We will show snippets over the next weeks. Thanks!

someday is not any day of the week

We are working on a group of flying women! the women have been so amazing - taking poses with their arms in the air - getting ready for flight! And then I do a bit of digital magic so that we can eventually place them on a banner. Stay tuned to this space as we get ready to produce our first banner with this community of women.

Visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario

I don't have a photograph to represent our trip to the Art Gallery of Ontario. Perhaps the image would be of the muffins I baked in advance of the trip. Or the beautiful blue sky. Or sitting on the corner waiting for the bus. Perhaps a collage would work.... as we encountered the work of Kenyan born artist Wengechi Mutu. One of the women who came on the trip was Kenyan! So it was a moment of sheer delight. Big thanks to the AGO for a delightful afternoon of immersion in colour, shape, feeling.

Instead I put up one of the banner mockups - a work in progress collage made up of some of the work done. These are not the kind of colours I often work in but they resonate with what we are doing down in the interior of an anonymous building.... Not so anonymous once these get placed outside!

Here is one of our works in progress,

affectionately known as the "crazy quilt." the saying goes "every stitch tells a story." This quilt will keep growing, and in the meantime we are figuring out the technical details of mounting it....

Our art supplies recycling program is successful by leaps and bounds! Thanks to Karyn from the Workroom (a great fabric arts shop at 1340 Queen St.) for beautiful fabric scraps, Emily for paints, and Michelle also for fabric and other items...we are going to get started on some quilting at Mainstay today....

Happy International Women's Day

Yeah! Another year of waiting is over and it's here! IWD!!!! Happy day to all of you. We have been working hard - and just finished writing our grants for production. We are hoping to be able to continue this work beyond the next few months. And the above rose is a thank you to all of our supporters... more flowers in the making!

In our grant writing we noted that we were privileged to write from places we can call home. Having a place called home means so much - it is a refuge, where we can think, write, imagine. One of the hardest things is to have no such place. To be in places where your thinking is disrupted, where there is no privacy, no sense of justice. There are consequences to a culture that does not provide for all of her citizens. We live these consequences, many of us on an unconscious level....

---

 

more gratitude

Yes, we received so much! It was a bounteous day at Evangeline.... Bags of wool, boxes of paint and all that has been previously mentioned! A huge thank you to the community who is supporting us. It was a great day to receive these donations as we could not get into the cupboard that contains the materials.... luckily the donations meant that we could continue into another afternoon. And one of the community members brought us Olympic donuts to eat!

We will be taking a trip soon to the art gallery. they have a wonderful program which supports community visits!

Here is the flyer we made to get more supplies. Yesterday we got a beautiful sewing machine, some drawing stuff and books, as well as boxes and boxes of paints. The sewing machine works perfectly and we are excited to use it....Kim

finding shelter

this day has been one of lovely conversation and knitting, crocheting, learning and teaching. i returned home to read some articles in order to prepare for class tomorrow. The article writes about Canadian policy and attitudes toward disability - and the fact is: we know very little. We do not understand how poverty and disability intersect; how poverty is persistent for some persons no matter what individual choices are made. it is particularly problematic and troubling if the person also lives with a disability or difference. 

Person residing in shelters often experience impairment and disability. Everyday is another day of not quite having enough. Not enough to buy a toothbrush, a new pair of shoes, underwear, socks. The stress is exhausting, it becomes a tangles of knots...

So what you see below is an intial design for a banner - made with the folks at one of Toronto's shelters.... gorgeous isn't it? There is untapped beauty in these old buildings.... let us know what you think!

thinking

it is a cold day today - extreme weather alert. So the chances of living and staying healthy on the streets is diminishing.

what you see above is our "pot" of wool! it is this that feeds us. we received some community donations of wool, needles, fabric, and more... so an enormous thank you to donors! we appreciate the attention - it really means much more than the wool, the needles. it means that people are actively thinking about this community. and by doing so, thinking, they begin to imply relationship.

happy birthday afternoon tea

today we celebrated the birthdays of all women with a (vegan) cake - chocolate with vanilla frosting and red icing decorations. around the sides of the cake were written words: crochet, knit, tea, talk, sew... on the top were the words "happy birthday" and some hearts, as well as icing balls of yarn! delicious.

however i felt also like some small piece of this cake was absent. One of the women who comes regularly has now left... and we will miss her but also wish her well as her life continues... it would have been nice to share this cake with her...

today we were 16 women. many of us continue to knit our knee warmers but there are many other projects on the go as well. including baby blankets for one of the women - who is due soon. next week our plan is to begin designing the banners. we are also arranging a trip to the art gallery. and still planning that knit in!

the women are filled with ideas about how to make our shelter systems better. first of all they would appreciate permanent housing, and recognition that shelters are not and should not be long term solutions. they would also appreciate housing for women over 50. there is a sense that perhaps shelters for specific groups would keep more women off the streets... and the usual wish for no bedbugs!

mute, silence

it's what we do, when the television is on and we want to take a phone call, what we wish we could do when someone is talking endlessly about something we may have a different opionion about.... i get a sense that our society would like to keep women who have experienced homelessness on mute...

but today it was noisey. many voices chattering over tea - women from different cultures, countries, with different belief systems all coming together for an afternoon of art. today we were learning how to make knee pads. one woman stated that they would be really helpful when she had to go back to the streets - good for keeping her knees warm. we thought that once we are done we will photograph us all wearing them! the pattern is not too complex, a ribbed stitch, moving into a shaped purl for the knee and then back to the ribbing (k2, p2) - if we figure out how to write a pattern down i may post it. right now we have an example that we are studying.

some of the women talked about the group itself, and that it was helpful. just to spend some time where there were no rules, where beauty was deemed an inherent part of life. and perhaps also it is a place where women can make some of what they have lost. a scarf, mittens, a sweater or hat. a picture for a wall. small and essential parts of life.

and we may well be knitting outside soon. we have decided that we would like to take our work onto the streets in order to bring more awareness of homelessness and what people in poverty face. stay tuned.