A Year End Letter to Friends

Dear Friends,

I am writing to tell you about something wonderful that began last year. With generous support from the Craft Yarn Council of America, the Arts Ashore Legacy Foundation and a groundswell of hope for more positive activity and unity in our city, the Loop It Up Savannah Project was launched at the West Broad Street YMCA.

At first, a few Savannah College of Art and Design Fibers Department volunteers began teaching a small group of children to knit and crochet. As we got to know the children better, we began to develop a curriculum starting a few steps before the specific crafts of knitting and crocheting. We now offer independent and collaborative Fiber Art Projects ranging from exploration of materials and development of fine motor skills to such traditional crafts as spinning, weaving, embroidery, knitting, sewing and crochet.

These crafts are relevant and accessible to all of us, including the low income children of Savannah because they are easy to learn and have played a traditional part in community building. As the children grow into skilled artists and makers, they develop a stronger sense of themselves and experience a safer, more exciting community. Currently funded by the Hodge Foundation of Savannah Georgia, we work with about fifty children on a weekly basis. This number will more than double as we offer programming at additional locations.

I am creating an artist book about Loop It Up Savannah which will be displayed at the American Craft Council’s National Art and Craft Show this February. The book will include curriculum, documentation of students’ work and information about how we collect and work with a variety of materials. It will be a recipe book for our project, a memento of the work that we’re doing and a tool for others interested in joining out project, or starting a similar program in their community.

All successful community endeavors depend on each member of the community offering what they can. We have built this program through generous and selfless donations of time, art materials, space, funding and ideas. Now I invite you to join our community and contribute what you can – suggestions, ideas, stories, materials or a financial donation that feels appropriate.

Be warm, be well, and join the excitement!

Molly Green Lieberman
The Loop It Up Savannah Project
c/o the West Broad Street YMCA
1110 May Street Savannah GA, 31415
www.loopitupsavannah.blogspot.com

ingredients

Page one in our Recipe Book! Coming soon!!!!

Knitta Please please please please

Knitta Please is an international "Textile Graffiti" Project. In recent years people around the world have left their mark via knitting, crocheting, wrapping...
Soon, a book will be published which will showcase 275 of these projects!
We decided to try our hand at it..... thanks you Jeremy Noonon for letting us know!

WEAVING!

We've been a little eaten up by oh, you know, real life happening... so here is a little of the last few weeks!

Some of the returning students from last year have been begging to knit! To make this a fun and accessible process for everyone, we are easing into it with a period of Yarn exploration. this included learning to roll a ball, finger weaving and weaving on small card board looms. Eventually, we'll make our way to knitting and crocheting.

Becoming familiar with a material and learning how to work with it and to classify it somewhere in your brain makes learning a concrete skill with that material more natural.

We went from playing to weaving...








(Faith and Jasonay practice their weaving on Gabby's hands....!)

Building Ourselves

After painting and drawing self portraits, we moved along to BUILDING ourselves!
This was the first try at free-for-all material exploration. It went Superbly!



After looking a pictures of sculpture people by Alexander Calder, Dajana carefully scelects her materials.


"My big legs are very long. My neck isn't actually this tall, but that's the kind of wood that we made, so it's okay to be taller."


Dajana worked hard with Gabby to secure all the pieces of herself!

(we have the most WONDERFUL group of teacher this year!)

scary scary halloween faces....

I promised I would put these "on the internet"....

Right Back Into It!!

What a SWELL first week!!
We began by asking in small groups, "what is a self portrait"? Answers ranged from "a really bad poison," to "a thing that you probably paint..." Finally, everyone came round and understood that we would be making pictures of ourselves.




Maurice, a returning student, informed me that he was "going to want everything to be blue. It's my favorite." This is his picture.



Tajae decided to do a picture of his sister, Taji...




Here is Taji's painting of herself



On the second day of classes with each group, we brought out the materials. It is very important for the kids to get a chance to play, to explore and begin to understand different materials and how we can use them. Before, we get into specific tecniques, there will be a period of playing and, like my beloved art teacher Cathy Topal often talks about-- the development of a fluency with materials.



James was quick to fill up his box with items that he liked.
"This is all good and at my seat I guess that it makes my eyes and legs and front."

... which it certainly did!!



Vandell made this one



*** We are building up a wonderful collection of materials!
Thank you, enormously, to everyone who has donated time and supplies!

Join the Savannah Community Materials Center on FACEBOOK!