Support Weaver House's Weaving Revival
Donation protected
Weaver House bought a weaving department and we need your help! If you’re local to Philadelphia, you’ve probably heard that the University of the Arts suddenly closed its operations in early June. This has been frustrating and heartbreaking news to many students who were in the middle of their degrees and are now left to scramble for what to do next.
The weaving department of UArts has been underutilized for some time — there hasn’t been a fibers major offered for many years — and if there is a silver lining for the textile community, it’s that now this equipment can be used for weaving education once again. We were able to rescue 16 Macomber looms, a small textile library, and an assortment of weaving tools from the school. Here’s where you come in!
This opportunity was unexpected and something we couldn’t have planned for, which has put us at a financial disadvantage. Coupled with the fact that we just moved our studio/classroom space, our current expenses are more than we’re capable of shouldering. We’ve started this GoFundMe, in the hopes that our community and some of y’all might help us offset some of the costs involved with purchasing, moving, storing, and restoring 16 school looms.
Our vision for this equipment is to offer more accessible workshops, loom rentals, start a residency program, and even redistribute some of the equipment to current UArts students and alumni.
How will be use the funds we raise?
- purchasing weaving and textile equipment including 16 looms + benches, a small textile library, weaving tools, warping reels, carding equipment and sewing machines.
- labor costs: hiring a team to inventory and pack all equipment and hiring movers for the move.
- moving expenses: boxes and storage containers, moving trucks and gas.
- storage: rent and equipment management.
- restoration: cleaning, restoring and replacing loom parts. Some of these looms need major part replacements in order to be operational again.
What are the key parts of our long-term vision?
- accessible workshops: the more looms we add to our weaving school, the more we can offer in workshop scholarships and free education. This will allow us to accept more students per workshop, pay our workshop teachers more and reduce costs for students long-term.
- residency program: we have always envisioned a Weaver House residency program, but up until now have had to allocate all of our looms to workshops. With the acquisition of these looms, we can offer special residencies on looms with 8-32 harnesses. It is rare to have access to a loom with more than 12-harnesses (especially as a beginner) and some of these looms have 12, 16, 20, and 32 harnesses.
- loom rentals: the same applies to loom rentals! Alongside a residency program, we can offer short and long-term loom rentals for those needing access to floor looms. We believe opening the studio to loom rentals will also lead to new community programming and weaver study groups.
- equipment reallocation: although there hasn't been an active weaving program at UArts for some time, we know all too well how jarring it is to lose access to studios and equipment (more typically after graduation). We plan to support UArts textile department students and alumni by providing access to these looms in our studio and with equipment redistribution.
Purchasing all this equipment was a stretch for us, but in conversation with staff, students and fellow businesses, we realized how special and rare this opportunity really is for our weaving community. Thank you for supporting our vision!
Organizer
Rachel Snack
Organizer
Philadelphia, PA