YAP I Weaving

Last Fall I started volunteering for the Young Artist Program (YAP) at the Chicago Children’s Museum. In addition to documenting the YAP projects I also started photographing other art studio spaces for children. So far all of these photos have just been taking up space on my phone but now that the YAP program is on a two month hiatus I am going to write a series of posts on the projects and on museum art studio spaces.

The art studio space at the Chicago Children’s Museum had only recently opened when I arrived to volunteer this Fall. It had previously been located in two other spaces at the current museum on Navy Pier (the museum itself also has had several locations).

The YAP projects designed by awesome educator Liz are long term and collaborative. The initial weaving project involved large looms built by museum staff. Several of the looms descended from the ceiling each day via a pulley system.

Liz in front of the descended looms

Several different materials including rope and fencing provided the warps of these looms. Strips of ribbons and webbing were provided for weaving. During November we suggested that children write what they were thankful for on the weft pieces before weaving them.

My oldest granddaughter writing on and weaving one of her strips

There were also looms whose warps consisted of branches with yarn provided for weaving or simply adding. These looms worked best for the youngest artists. And for even younger guests two looms had been attached to make a space for infants to crawl under and interact with the weaving.

All of the looms are now hanging high on the walls of the studio to provide beauty and some sound absorption.

You can see a bit of how the looms looked undescended in this photo. The tree yarn looms, temporarily stored on the pulley apparatus in this photo, have now joined the others on the wall.

The YAP program runs on Monday through Thursday mornings and the looms were available during October and November this year. This project was a perfect one for me as a volunteer as weaving with children has always been one of my interests. Many years ago when I was a family child care provider I did a large room weaving with children in a downtown gallery space. As a teacher I had also done many weaving and fiber projects with children and have amassed a large collection of relevant children’s books which I was delighted to share.