I am in the final stages of preparing to take Comforter Art Action to Sew City at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary. The Museum staff tell me that donations of blankets and materials are piling up. This is good news because my installation will be a reenactment of the most enduring image from Anderson's The Princess and the Pea. I am suggesting that the big pile of comforters that have been donated and hand made for those displaced from homes and comfort, can today signify a pile of social capital rather than class distinction which was the tale's original meaning.
I was intrigued to hear recently that the term social capital originated with Jane Jacobs. On this day, I think about how her life as a mother in a vibrant community informed her activism and theorizing. "Jane's Walk" through Greenwich Village with historian and educator Nicholas O'Han, was a highlight of my recent travels to NYC. Thank you Nic O'Han for generously showing us the neighbourhood and telling great stories about key moments from NYC's past. I am intrigued and inspired.
[The fresh copy of Dark Days Ahead that I had picked up at McNally Jackson, a Canadian subsidiary planted near the village where it is busy building reading communities, was unfortunately left behind on a bench at the JFK Airport. Darn.]
Hope to see you in Calgary next week!
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