Does Comforter Art-Action make you laugh? Well Mary Walsh managed to use it for a laugh at the first Canadian Social Forum here in Calgary! She was asked to do announcements from the podium yesterday. One of those announcements involved a description of the sewing circle that I hosted outside of the conference hall. She described how the delegates were bringing fabric to make a blanket for a local shelter. She looked out at the crowd of 500+ delegates and considered the enormity of their topic at hand -poverty- and she said "Only one blanket!?!" At least that is how it was repeated to me...
Yes, delegates brought some interesting fabric from many distant places and situations. Tetteh Kofi Hadjor from the Green Pastures Society in Toronto and Isaac Akrong from Humanity in Harmony brought two beautiful Kenta Clothes from Ghana and asked us to choose one for use in a blanket. I chose the blue and yellow piece because I knew that it would look stunning with the black polar fleece backing (supplied by a local fabric store). Veronica (from the Glenbow's family programs), chose the fabric to border it and Alexis (a Glenbow volunteer) sewed it all together on the old singer that I brought along. This blanket top as well as all of the interesting fabric samples will be finished as blankets at this weekend's sewing circles in the Museum on Saturday and Sunday.
Meanwhile the princess bed in the museum lobby has a small stack of blankets. Tonight I will participate in a one hour panel about art and social change. The moderator is Dick Alverns and the other artists from 'This is my home' project in Calgary: Linda Hawke, Adina Edwards and Mary Swain. Art and Social Action, 6:30pm, ConocoPhillips Theatre, Glenbow Museum.
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