Concept, History, and Process:

FRIENDSHIP IN HARD TIMES is a community interactive art installation project, which opened in June at the University of New England’s Annual Sculpture Garden Show. It can be viewed outdoors near the Stevens Ave, Portland Campus Gallery at any time through October of 2010.

The installation celebrates the traditional female practices of braiding, and of collaborating to develop a work of art larger than any one person might create. The project encourages creative recycling and invites groups of people to work together, exploring the role of friendship in contemporary life through handwork, discussion, and writing.

Friendship is like a flower in the winter. Seasons pass and your friendship might wilt ... But in the end they’ll always come back again.
Emma
...a friend is someone you can always count on, to be there for you when you fall and stand up for you when someone teases you, and to, most importantly, be someone to turn to...
...Even when friends fight, you can count on them not to hold it over you.
Marie

YOU ARE INVITED TO PARTICIPATE in any or all of these ways:

  1. Collect brightly colored or printed, clean plastic bags of any thickness or size.
  2. Gather a group for a demonstration and work session of cutting and simple braiding for the installation. All participants who wish to be named will be acknowledged in the literature of the project.
  3. Write (a story, poem, song) about a time when someone was a friend to you in hard times, and or a time when you were a friend during their hard times.
  4. Donate a copy of your writing to the project, and/or take turns sharing what you wrote with each other in a group. Collected writings will be on view at the exhibition in June, and eventually in a project blog.
  5. Sign up to help install the final work during the second week of June.
  6. Become a sponsor. Sponsors will be acknowledged in all project literature and events.
...a friend is someone who encourages me to be challenged, somewho makes me laugh.
Owen
Friends help you get through all the bumps, twists and bends.
Skyler
A friend is incredible at keeping secrets.
Callie
 
Good friends look after each other, care for each other and play with each other.
Johnah
A good friend is honest and will help you through rough times...I feel safe telling her my secrets and she is safe telling me hers.
Mariah
  • How to Make a Friendship SCARF
  • First, you take the Kind cloth;
  • then soak it in the you-can-disagree-but-not-fight water.
  • Take the Fair thread, and weave it through the Kind cloth.
  • Put the Kind cloth in an already-knit scarf of stay-togetherness yarn.
  • Now, your scarf will be strong with the Kind cloth woven with Fair thread.
  • plus the you-can-disagree-but-not-fight water.
  • It will be SUPER soft with the Stay-togetherness thread.
  • The End
  • By P.H.

 

For more information, to help, or to set up a group demonstration and work session contact the artist at acinnamon@meca.edu.

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