Intertwine Arts is grateful for the grant received from the Schacht's Tools for Schools Program. The addition of Cricket looms in our workshops has allowed more of our program participants who have physical or cognitive disabilities to experience the joy, creativity, and therapeutic benefits of weaving. Many of our participants love that they are able to warp the looms themselves, and thereby assert their artistic independence. Intertwine Arts Teaching Artists have also noted the benefit of being able to clamp the looms to the tables while people are weaving, so that people don't accidentally knock or move them around while working.
The Schacht Cricket looms were distributed to our multiple partnering organization locations, where we teach our weaving workshops on a weekly basis all year round. At YAI, Teaching Artist Vandana Jain shared her experience with two workshop participants, Leroy Pettaway and Tayloe Shinz-Devico: "We all put together the 15” Cricket loom. Leroy was incredibly helpful, and Tayloe had a lot of fun. Then we warped both the looms. Tayloe and I worked on one, while I got Leroy started on the bigger one. He picked out all his warp colors, and did a lot of the threading. Tayloe made a rainbow warp, and was excited to start a new weaving."
Vandana added, “Tayloe is one of our most prolific weavers on the Cricket, and was very excited to finish a scarf, making stripes using smaller pieces of pink and purple yarns for the weft. She has a strong sense of color, and likes brights, primaries, as well as white. We worked on making overhand knots, and it took some time but she was able to finish knotting the fringes on her own." Tayloe is proudly giving this scarf to her mother.
In the workshops of two other Intertwine Arts partners, HeartShare participants have been weaving a multitude of beautiful woven fabrics, and some of our AHRC NYC artists have been experimenting with interlocking. Our program participants have produced a variety of scarves, bags, pillows and tapestries from their woven work, and some are even currently patchworking their pieces to make blankets.
Thank you for helping the world become a more creative and accessible place!