After School Weaving @ Washington School for Girls
As a lead teaching artist with Project Create DC, I lead a fall after school art class for 3 - 4th grade students focused on the art of weaving.
Taking inspiration from Rainbow Weaver by Linda Elovitz Marshall, we learned about the weaving tradition of indigenous Guatemalans, and created our own looms from cardboard and rubber bands. We used unconventional materials (paper, pipe cleaners, ribbons, beads) to create artworks on our looms using basic weaving patterns.
A personal connection students had to weaving was through hair weaving. Many of them recognized similiarities between the process of hair weaving and loom weaving. Some days were spent exploring this connection in a casual style, talking about our days while braiding each other’s hair.
To bring the idea of weaving to a large scale, I repurposed a room divider into a loom, and invited students to weave long strips of scrap fabric through its holes. Allowing the the experience to become an invitation to play, students reimagined the loom as a backdrop for a performance, a door to an imaginary world, and the entrance to a beauty salon.