The Collective Mending Sessions

It all started with…

a tattered quilt from my teenage years that I told my mother to discard. Being wise, she did not. In 2018, this quilt returned to me and thus began the slow work of hand mending.

I quickly realized that I needed and wanted help repairing this object. The Collective Mending Sessions was born. This project is a series of socially engaged workshops centered on collaboratively mending my quilt.

The Collective Mending Session’s main goal is to cultivate care for cloth and community through the meditative process of mending.

We do this through partnering with community organizations to host workshops. Workshops include basic mending instruction and building community through the share task of stitching. An interactive resource library of instructional books and materials accompanies the project, providing participant-led learning when the artist is not present.

Previous sessions:

Arrowmont School for Art & Craft, Pentaculum January 2018

A Collection of Gestures, group exhibition of socially engaged work, Constance Gallery, Graceland University, November 2018

polYESter, solo exhibition & Collective Mending Session workshop, Public Space One, Iowa City, IA, April 2019

Collective Mending Sessions, Open House, Kansas City, MO - August 2019

Lockwood Cafe/Reliable Street -Ames, IA - Tuesdays 10 AM -September 2019

Beyond the Surface Conference - Surface Design Association, St. Louis, MO - October 3 & 4, 2019

Olson Larsen Gallery - Des Moines, IA - October 26,2019 - 1-4pm

Collective Mending Sessions, ISU Design on Main Gallery, Ames, IA, January 31, 2020 - 6-9pm

Artist’s Hometown, Osceola, IA - Clarke County Development Corporation - Sunday, February 23, 2020 - 6-9pm

Evan’s Family Home with Mustard Seed Farm Community, Ames, IA - Saturday, February 8, 2020 - 1-4pm

Lockwood Cafe/Reliable Street & #WomenKnowStuffToo - Ames, IA - Every Wednesday in March 2020 - 10am - 1pm