Basketball, Kids, Community, & Projects

Today working at the building was nice. I didn’t get what I wanted to accomplish done in the chapel but I have to say getting the basketball pole/hoop refurbished with paint and a new net was really satisfying. I promised the neighborhood kids I would do this so they play basketball if they wanted to. I think it’s important to keep those promises. Kids are the future and they deserve to know they have worth. All my boys are grown up and I am proud of the men they have become. They were able to be exposed to music, art, and sports. I believe having Revival’s here in this building will be instrumental in broadening they way they look at art and community. I have partnered with Acacia Academy in Kokomo for the school year to teach art - within the theme they have chosen for the year - Restoration. Its such a privilege to teach the kids about wool and fiber in general and how things that were thought of as being disposable can be restored into something else. Our first class is using Styrofoam cutouts of their first initial and wrapping it with wool and mixed fiber yarns. I am going to teach where we get wool and fiber from during this lesson. I have some 100% wool yarn and Alpaca fiber to show the differences and in the end the kids get to make something special that they can hang on the wall or put on a desk or bookshelf. I will post a picture of the projects that they complete as they are completed and add them here. Each month its going to be different and I will add that months lesson on the schedules page under outreach so you can see what it is but I will blog about it here and how the lesson went. Outreach is such an important aspect of my business. I am also teaching virtual classes through the Greentown library. The first lesson is making mats using plastic chicken wire and reclaimed fabric. The mats can be used for sitting planters on, embellishing them and making mementos for gifts, its really rather endless as to what the uses can be. The second one in October is making beads from roving that can be used for jewelry or as embellishments. Its really easy and fun. Its my hope that I can grow a following of people that might not have thought of Fiber art as something that was in their wheelhouse. I have so many ideas and want to put them all out there but nothing grows over night so patience and tending what I’ve sown is my lesson. You can’t get from A to Z without going through all the alphabet between.