Collective Buzz at Craft and the New Economy Symposium

Us!

The Beehive is big on sharing skills, knowledge, and inspiration. This orientation is a driving force in all of our activities, which are collective endeavours that draw on our individual strengths and backgrounds. We also try to reach out to the community around us to participate in our projects (see Knit Night on the Brain), provide us with space to make stuff (thank you Kieran & The Brain!), and teach us skills that will help us on the path to self-sufficiency.

So when the Ontario Crafts Council approached us about presenting an interactive activity at their upcoming symposium, Craft and the New Economy, we were pretty stoked on this opportunity. We knew we wanted to present a collective making activity, and reflecting on what we had to offer as a group, we decided that we could also share our experience in making a collective.

If you plan to attend the Symposium on March 10, 2012 (which is highly recommended if you are interested in issues in contemporary craft), we invite you to sign up in the morning for Collective Buzz, which will take place at the reception following the Symposium from 6-8pm. Here you'll hear about how the Beehive was formed, how to start a collective in your own community, and we'll provide you with supplies and instructions for making English paper-pieced fabric hexagons. If this is is ringing a bell, Hollie mentioned it in the last post which also hinted enigmatically about the installation proposal we submitted for this year's Supercrawl. Here is another clue about where we are headed with this project: you can hold on to your hexagons made during this session, or you can leave them with us to be included in the installation.

We're excited to share our know-how and learn from Symposium-goers as well. See you there!