Digital Drop-in: Weaving Climate Datascapes

Sign on for a live, artist-led tutorial on experimenting with craft and design processes. During this workshop, MAD Artist Studios resident Tali Weinberg will guide participants through the process of transforming climate change data into hand-woven, abstract landscapes. Each participant will create their own unique color-coded weaving on a frame loom while reflecting on their relationship to land and water in the context of climate change.

MAD’s Digital Drop-ins are for participants of all ages, backgrounds, and skill levels. Following the demonstration, participants will have time to independently work on their project and share with “neighbors” in the virtual class.

All Digital Drop-ins are 45 minutes. Registrants will receive an email 24 hours in advance of the program with instructions for accessing the workshop on Zoom.

Suggested Materials

• Yarn (for the weft)
  • 5 colors (or more!) At least 5 yards of each color
  • Feel free to use yarns you already have on hand, like remainders from knitting or other weaving projects. If you would like to buy yarn, tapestry wool is a relatively affordable way to purchase small amounts of many colors. Purl Soho in NY also has a nice variety of small skeins.
  • We will use the colors to code temperature data. You might want to select a set of colors that move from dark to light or warm to cool, or a set of colors that reminds you of a place you love. Any variety is ok. Choose what you like!
• Pre-warped loom
  • You can use a small frame loom, a cardboard loom or you can make your own cardboard loom.
  • Please come to the workshop with your loom already warped with a weaving width between 3” and 5." Tali recommends white or off-white cotton for the warp.
• 2 tapestry needles with blunt ends
  • Tali recommends Clover Jumbo Tapestry Needles  that come in sets of 2 and are available through most craft stores.
• Pickup stick to make the weaving shed (could be a ruler, a bone folder, or a small strip of sturdy cardboard ½-1” wide x 6” long)
• A printout of the single-page data sheet that will be emailed the morning of the program

About the artist

Tali Weinberg draws on a history of weaving as a subversive language for women and marginalized groups to create a feminist, material archive in response to the worsening climate crisis. Through sculpture, drawing, and textiles, Weinberg traces relationships among climate change, water, extractive industry, illness, and displacement; between personal and communal loss; and between corporeal and ecological bodies. During her residency, Weinberg will twine, coil, and weave experimental baskets out of medical tubing, sutures, thread, and climate data, using petroleum-derived material to grapple with the intersections of illness and climate crisis. Weinberg’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Surface Design Journal, the Tulsa Voice, and Ecotone. Recent exhibitions include the University of Colorado Art Museum, 21 C Museum, Berkeley Art Museum, and the Center for Craft. Weinberg has taught at California College of the Arts, University of Tulsa, and Penland School of Craft.