Building a Neighborhood Together

Building a Neighborhood Together is a community engaged wet- and needle-felted wool map measuring 6’x8’ commissioned by Textile Center for it’s 25th birthday. It was created by participants over several events facilitated by the artist.

A scale base map of the neighborhood where Textile Center is located was drafted onto the white wool background by the artist. Community and Textile Center members worked in groups and at home on over 100 neighborhood landmarks they and the artist identified, from the obvious to the little-known. The artist assembled the motifs into the final composition and did the finishing needle felting. The resulting map captures a neighborhood at a moment in time recorded by many hands and recognizes the relationship between an arts institution and a diverse city neighborhood.