Crochet Jam, hosted by sculptor Ramekon O'Arwisters, uses the folk-art tradition of crocheting strips of fabric into free-form and organic soft sculptures to foster social interaction, creativity, and liberation. There aren't any rules nor patterns.

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Crochet Jam is an opportunity for play, experimentation, and for allowing the material to transform naturally without any expectations nor any attempt to control the outcome. Participants become a conduit for the transformation of the material without any resistance, whether they like what they see or not. Participants just crochet and calmly observe without judgment or critique.

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No attempt is made to dictate the creative process and there is no focus on the finished product. Materials and basic instruction in crochet provided.

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Ramekon O’Arwisters is the founder of Crochet Jam, a community-arts project infused with folk-art traditions that foster a creative culture in cooperative relationships. Born in Kernersville, North Carolina, O’Arwisters earned a M.Div. from Duke University Divinity School in 1986. O’Arwisters is the 2021 recipient of the McLaughlin Foundation Award for The Project Space at Headlands Center for the Arts, Artist-in-Residence program and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant for 2020/21. Past artist-in-residence programs include the de Young Museum Artist in Residence, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Recology San Francisco Artist in Residence Program and the Vermont Studio Center. Grants and Awards include Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue, NY; the San Francisco Foundation; the San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Initiatives Program; Black Artists Fund, Sacramento; and the Eureka Fellowship awarded by the Fleishhacker Foundation in San Francisco. Upcoming museum exhibitions include the San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design, FIGHT AND FLIGHT: CRAFTING A BAY AREA LIFE; American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA), Making in Between: Gender Identities in Clay (MIB:GIC); and San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, Queer Threads. O’Arwisters is the founder of Crochet Jam, a community arts project infused with folk-art traditions that foster a creative culture in cooperative relationships. Learn more at www.ramekon.com

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This program is presented in conjunction with Ramekon O'Arwisters' exhibition Freeform & Razor-Sharp, on view at MoAD until June 11.

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