June Workshops

On June 5th, 6th and 7th artists, environmentalists and festival participants gathered together at Studio 490 to make paper embedded with the native seeds we'd collected and to embroider onto the dried patches. The cozy feeling in the studio inspired many interesting conversations and connections, and made for some beautiful seed patches. Some chose to take their finished patches with them to plant in their gardens at home, while others chose to leave theirs as part of several community quilts to be planted.

Friday and Saturday saw three paper making workshops. Recycled scraps of paper were ripped up, blended with water in a kitchen blender (if you want to try this at home we recommend having a separate blender for paper as the sizer included in most papers is not edible) and mixed with seeds in a large bin. We had many different varieties of flower and grass seed paper mixes going, some whose seed fibres added unique texture and form to the paper. The pulp was then sifted onto homemade box screens, drained and placed on cloth to dry. Caleb Couch, our youngest participant (4 years) , turned out to be an exceptional paper maker and made many many amazing patches. The sun came out on Saturday afternoon and we set the paper out to dry on the pavement outside the studio.

On Saturday and Sunday, we ran three embroidery workshops. Time and care were taken as the dry patches of paper were embroidered with images of blossoming flowers and grasses. One of the participants was quite perplexed as to why we were embroidering something that would soon go into the ground. This stimulated what I found to be an interesting conversation around art-making, questioning motivation and product/process based art. I myself have been exploring the idea of living processes of art. I like to make things that continually change and grow in unexpected ways, or sometimes disappear to the human eye. I think the idea of making something for what might appear to be nothing is interesting. I often participate in actions that seem futile, perhaps as a response to something bigger that I can't affect directly, or as a way of engaging in what I don't yet understand. There is also this idea of putting care and effort directly into the earth as a different ethic than much of modern living embodies. Hmm... Alongside these conversations, some beautiful creations were made. I enjoyed the process of stitching the patches with others and the intersecting themes of ecology, community and art-making in the conversations that ebbed and flowed through the workshops.

A few days later, Louisa and I planted several of the patches just outside the studio, and I hope their roots will stretch and grow. It was a bit of a risky site as the doggy day care often take their dogs there to pee and they might unearth the seeds, but we will see...

Thanks to everyone who attended and contributed to the workshop, I hope a few seeds were sown and I look forward to seeing them blossom in time.

June Workshops

WAKE UP TIME - Stratification

Most sleepy sleepy seeds who spend all winter in a warm cozy paper bag need a little tap on the shoulder or a fresh cold shower to wake them up to get ready to grow. Colin and I spent a couple hours in May sorting seeds, giving them a bath and placing them in containers with cool water where they will sit and chill in the fridge for several weeks until germination time.

This is called stratification and it mimics the natural conditions a plant expects from its native environment. Seeds that are shed in the late autumn expect a cool moist environment like the frosts and snows that cover our northern lands. Those who drop in the early fall or spring need a warm moist treatment to induce germination. Since we collected most of our seeds in the late fall, we give them a cool winter in their plastic containers in Colin's fridge. They sit next to the maple syrup from the market which surely gives them warm fuzzy thoughts about late winter and spring in Ontario.

Seeds are usually stratified for 4-6 weeks, but since we need them a bit sooner than that we'll give them a nice short winter season- only a few weeks in the cold. Hopefully it's enough to rouse them!

spOtlight festival!

The spOtlight festival has begun!  It's not too late to register in any of the sessions.

Our first paper-making day went well -- pictures to be posted soon.

Welcome!

Welcome, welcome to our blog!  The spOtlight weekend is less than two weeks away!  

We hope you will join us for our Sewing Seeds event to be held at Studio 490.
We have been busy building paper-making frames, designing embroidery patterns, preparing the seeds for germination and gathering up the supplies needed to host this event.

Here is the schedule for the weekend.

Make Paper!

Fri, June 5 from 7 - 8:30 pm

Sat, June 6 from 10 - 11:30am

Embroider!

Sat, June 6 from 2 - 3:30pm

Sun, June 7 from 10 - 11:30am  &  2 - 3:30pm

Planting demonstration!

Sunday afternoon (time tba)

(Registration is recommended, so that we have a sense of numbers.)

Please email us at sewingseedscollective@gmail.com or call 519-829-3576.

Bag of Seeds

This is Christina's bag of collected native plant seeds.  (bag design by Janet Morton 2008)

Contents:

Flower Seeds

Blue Vervain - verbena hastata

Thimbleweed - anemone virginiana

Swamp Aster - aster puniceus

Foxglove Beardtongue - penstemon digitalis

New England Aster - aster novae-angliae

Dense Blazing Star - liatris spicata

Grass seeds

Switch Grass - panicha virgatum

Virginia Wild Rye - elymus virginiana

Indian Grass - sorghastrum nutans

Little Bluestem - schizachirium scoparia

Earth Day

Louisa wrote:

Happy Earth Day, all!  

On the first day of spring, I made a quick video of the grounds just outside Studio 490 and I thought I'd share it with you today.

Studio 490, as mentioned earlier, is where the Sewing Seeds event will take place in June.  It's a studio shared by me and Anne.

It's in a lightly industrial part of Guelph, near York and Victoria roads.

The warehouse space was the former Guelph Stove Company and now is home to several woodworking shops, artists and other businesses.  A train yard is nearby, along with several businesses involved in steel fabricating or automotive parts, and also a brown field which has a makeshift skate park in a corner of it, that one can get to via a hole in the fence.

I've often been fascinated with the juxtaposition of human industry and nature, sometimes lamenting the harmful interactions, but also noticing the life that does inhabit and perhaps thrive in industrial landscapes.

On two occasions, I have noticed a groundhog ambling through the shadows of the parking lot. A few weeks ago, two geese landed on the roof adjacent to the studio, and then flew up right above our window, honking loudly to see if anyone was home!

Besides the honking, there is so much birdsong lately...I couldn't resist documenting it.

Check out the video on the right-hand side.

Spring!

The ground and skies are filling with the subtle colours of spring, the songs of birds and smells of the thawing, warming earth.  There are green shoots poking through the dirt, crocuses and other blooming bulbs, buds on the tree branches and sap colouring the yellow willows. The sun comes up earlier and sets later.

We have photos to share, but first...

Let me (Louisa) introduce the members of the Sewing Seed Collective.  

They are Christina, Anne, Colin and Louisa.

We have news...

SpOtlight Update!!!

Back in February, we all got together over tea at the Red Brick and came up with a project proposal for the Ontario Art Council's SpOtlight program.

This is a weekend event showcasing local artists and arts organizations within a specific locale. This year the spotlight is on Guelph, K-W, Cambridge and area, and will take place over the weekend of June 5-7, 2009.  Please visit www.spotlightfestival.ca.

We will host a Paper Making, Paper Embroidery and Paper Planting workshop during this weekend.  Our collection of native plant seeds will be scattered and sown, making its way from paper packets into a slurry of recycled paper pulp, which will then be strained over a screen and made into a paper 'patch'. Designs will be embroidered into the paper patch once it is dry.  

The patches will then be ready for planting (or decoratively hanging).  

There will be most definitely be an informal discussion about native plants and perhaps a planting demo onsite.  The workshops will be held at Studio 490.

More details to follow...

Excursion

Christina wrote...

In the chilly month of November, I went for an excursion with a german shepherd and one of my favourite people in this town.  We drove up to Edinburgh just south of Woodlawn and spent a few cold hours at the restoration area harvesting wildflower and grass seeds.  On that bleak crisp day, I fell in love with the plethora of browns, greys and silvers, the curled dried leaves and wisps of seed hairs.  Several weeks later, my friend dropped off a paper bag filed with seeds, all sleeping in their labelled packets.  I think of them now as the earth awakens around me and I put away my stitched snowflakes.  Perhaps they will emerge soon to see the light of day, to be embedded into paper and stitched into a blanket of sorts.  I anticipate their unfolding and imagine them rooting in the little nooks and crannies I see as I walk through the city.  

Wake up, wake up- it's the first day of spring.

Sleeping Seeds

Welcome to the Sewing Seeds space here, there or anywhere you are.

It is wintertime and seeds are sleeping in the earth (or in their little packets in which they've been collected), waiting for spring.  We are happy you've taken the time to visit us here.

Who is 'We'?

This blog was initiated by several artists and native plant enthusiasts from Guelph, Ontario, for the purpose of sharing information about grasses and wildflowers native to our local habitat. We are interested in the interplay of art and ecology - where creative forces draw on our knowledge of our environment, on natural or reused materials and on traditional hand-skills that require patience and care.

 

Watch for information about upcoming events.  Feel free to post or contact us!