Session: Young Women’s Design + Building Institute Weekend Workshop, Fall 2022

Builders: 7 high school students

Materials: plywood, screws, casters, Shaper Tools table-top CNC router, cotton and wool, natural dyes

Description: On a sunny Sunday in October, teen builders from our Young Women’s Design + Building Institute gathered at Girls Garage to meet another group of creatives: elders of Arte de La Nueva Tercera Edad (ADELANTE) from Kern County, a textile art collective and activist group shedding light on environmental injustice in the Central Valley. Using the technical construction skills they learned this past summer, our teens built a sewing table and storage unit for the ADELANTE members to use in their creative studio space in the Arvin Community Center. In exchange, the elders taught our students how to use indigenous and traditional dyes to make beautiful textiles. Under the tutelage of these women, our students used sawdust from an osage tree to make yellow dye, cochinil insects to make a rich magenta red, and indigo to make blue. It was a beautiful day of exchanging conversations, skills, and stories.