The June meeting of the Prairie Fiber Arts Guild was held at the farm of Julie Mathis. It turned out to be a beautiful, cool early summer day. After a business meeting of the guild, Julie demonstrated how to skirt a fleece - which is the process of discarding the unusable portion of a fleece and getting the fleece ready to process for spinning or felting. Afterwards we all walked out to see the alpaca and sheep, then had lunch together in "the palace". Thanks, Julie and Dan for a wonderful day! PrairieCeltWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. This morning, as a representative of Prairie Fiber Arts Guild, I
attended the Advancing Arts + Culture forum at Trewyn Elementary School in Peoria, sponsored by ArtsPartners and Illinois Central College. The series of forums is designed to elicit and provide input for an Arts and Culture Plan being created for our area as part of the Brilliant Bright Community Project. http://www.tricountyrpc.org/brilliant-bright-community-project Moderated by Suzette Boulais of ArtsPartners of Central Illinois, and Christopher Grey of Illinois Central College, the project was explained. Here are the main points: 1. Broad concept of arts and culture 2. Creating a sense of place, culturally 3. How to create things that survive us – sustainability 4. How to make connections – connecting what we’re doing with what others in the community are doing The Moderators asked the audience to participate in an exercise to list the strengths and weaknesses of our community’s arts culture. Strengths: 1. A diverse arts community 2. Collaboration is happening now 3. Number of facilities available 4. Strong arts leadership to model collaboration 5. Growing amount of studio space 6. Strong cultural heritage of the area, going back to vaudeville days 7. Good, inexpensive opportunities to attend cultural events Weaknesses: 1. Need to connect now 2. How to tie it all together – need a “central hub” 3. How to branch out/tie in 4. Working relationships with city council/city sectors 5. Family involvement in the arts 6. Accessibility – transportation is a problem for some areas of the community The next meeting will be held March 21st at the Riverfront Museum from 1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m. and the topic will be the economic impact of the arts on a community. The discussion on collaboration among the various arts groups in the tri-county area was very interesting and should have a very positive impact on the arts culture. I introduced myself as a representative of the newly-formed Prairie Fiber Arts Guild and gave a brief description of the April event and our planned November holiday sale. Of course I added that we represent the “stepchild” of the arts world – fiber arts. We received support and encouragement from all those present and they said we are no longer the “stepchild” and invited us into the mainstream arts culture. If you are interested in attending the next meeting, please come. Will post additional meeting dates and times as they are announced. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of inspiration and what inspires or motivates us to create something. This is capturing my imagination . . . Purple Rain BFL roving from High Prairie Fibers. Lovely. Too lovely for socks. Spun it screams “denim friendly” - and there’s about 1500 yards – enough for a tunic style vest I think.
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