The Common Table brought together a group of twenty-two women that share the physical space on the Wesleyan College campus. The building walls, division of majors, age, and many other factors can create a barrier that prevent students, faculty, and staff who enter the campus each day from ever encountering each other. This project aimed to encourage a diverse group of students, faculty, and staff to build community through a series of events and a shared meal that took place withinRead more
Posts tagged: #art
Palm Petals
The SECC is proud to feature and profile projects of Socially Engaged Craft. Here, we’d like to profile Palm Petals, submitted by Casey Whittier. Palm Petals is an opportunity for collaboration, community engagement and shared experience through art. During this project, visitors of all ages and abilities are invited into the space to participate in the creation of flowers through the simple act of molding colored clay in the palms of their hands. This intuitive, meditative act creates individualized petalsRead more
The Role of Performance in Socially Engaged Craft (and Art!)
By Mary Baumstark As a collective, one of the first things we asked ourselves was, almost obviously, “what defines socially engaged craft? Or art?” and this was quickly followed up by the most common second question, “does performance count?” As philosophies and practices, social engagement (practice, SEA, whatever you choose to call it) and performance have similar histories in both art and craft discourses. These lineages are, perhaps, most easily accessed through avant-garde histories, although recent craft history and criticismRead more
socially engaged craft collective 