October 28, 2015 Tapestry News

The artist of all the tapestries, Jennifer Rain, has completed the drawings for tapestries number 9 and 10. The 9^th tapestry is of our much loved and appreciated volunteer fire department, the  San Juan Fire Department.  The main scene is of a fire near a home. The bottom border shows many of the department’s other activities,  assistance at medical emergencies and at traffic accidents, partnering with helicopter evacuations, giving out free life jackets to children, instructing children visiting the firehall, and of, course, the famous May, Scotch Broom Breakfast.

  “How We Live” is the title of the 10^th tapestry, a complex, 9 foot long collage depicting 8 local homesteads and the local Ring of Bone Zendo. It features many different architectural styles and building sites and variety of life ways associated with each location are depicted.

These recent drawings will be on the shelf as we work to complete stitching on tapestries #8, “The River” and #9 “The Blue Cradle”. This is our first attempt at working on two tapestries at the same time.  They rotate between the Oak Tree Community library and Mary Moore’s workshop.  Today the stitchers expressed a longing to work again on the Blue Cradle.  So the River went to Mary’s home where stitchers may join Mary on Mondays. Mary has completed all the water parts and now river rocks both above and below water remain to be done.

Anyone is welcome to join us stitching “The Blue Cradle” at the Community Library Tuesday afternoon from 1 to 3 or Thursday morning from 10 to 12.  For more information call Marsha Stone at 265-3753.

We continue to be grateful for the outpouring of support during our recent crowdsourced fundraising. Though we had hoped to raise enough to finance two tapestries, we have been able to finance four of them. That leaves just two more Tapestries to meet our goal of 12 to fill the North Columbia Schoolhouse Cultural Center.     

News January 20, 2015 

It has taken 13 months but the Building the Oak Tree School Tapestry #6 is finished. The tapestry will be unveiled at the annual Sierra Storytelling Festival held at the North Columbia Schoolhouse Cultural Center July 17 to 19, 2015. The tapestry will be part of the finale for a larger Cultural Center Project funded by Cal Humanities. For information about the Festival contact the Cultural Center (530)265-2826 or ncscc@nccn.net   

 Below are the names of  those wonderful folks who stitched for more than 1000 hours to complete the tapestry. Their signatures on muslin fabric will be sewn on the back of the tapestry.

 

Tapestry #7 is on the quilting frame in our new workspace so kindly donated by the San Juan Park District in the Oak Tree School area. Having a room of our own means we don’t have to dismantle the frame and carry the frame parts and 5 large storage boxes back and forth from home to car to meeting place and then back again each work day.  The frame stays up and ready for us to work. We are  very grateful. We will miss the wonderful company of the Resource Center staff who arranged work space for us last year besides carrying out their many services for the community. Diana's, Kathryn's and Kristin’s encouragement and good cheer made it a very happy place for us to work.

                                                        The Tuesday stitching group.

Jennifer Crosby finished the drawing for tapestry #7, The River, in December 2014.

Mary Moore, our chief of embroidery, is keeping very busy with questions about color choice of yarn and stitching style. This tapestry presents new challenges with views both above and below the river’s surface as well as the color changes caused by sun beams in the river.

Local fishermen helped us with which insects and fish to include in the tapestry. Local river lovers tell us that they recognize some of the rocks Jennifer included in her drawing. A chance meeting with Fish and Game  expert Roger Bloom, at the river near Park’s Bar one day, gave us the opportunity to learn why it has been so difficult to get the color right for the fish.  Many  fish have chromatophores in their skin, which change color with emotions and circumstances.

Finally, we are grateful for the many donors to our Indiegogo fundraiser. We believe we have enough money  for 3 more tapestries.  

 Marsha Stone

For an intimate look at some of the tapestry stitchers at work, visit our video  link below. If you would like to support the project with a contribution, send your check to the

     North Columbia Schoolhouse Cultural Center
     17894 Tyler Foote Road
     Nevada City CA 95959

http://youtu.be/WdSeaZbCcXk

Fundraisers

We will be selling poster and card replicas of our tapestries at the Sierra Storytelling Festival, so make sure to check that out here: http://sierrastorytellingfestival.org/. All the money we raise will go to materials for our ongoing project. 

We will also be launching a crowdfunding campaign on indiegogo.com on Saturday the 19th. Check back soon for the links once the campaign launches. If you're new to this kind of thing, crowdfunding is a way to collect monetary donations through the web. Perks (Items we'll send to you to show our gratitude for donating) include your name being sewn onto the back of the newest tapestry, greeting cards, posters, jigsaw tapestry puzzles, and various other things.

Make sure to share this post and spread the tapestry project's exposure to the community.

- Josh Tecklin

Don't Mine Our Water

  Don’t Mine Our Water 

This tapestry, 5^th in the series of 13 tapestries planned for the North Columbia Schoolhouse Cultural Center, describes events between 1975 and 1997 on the San Juan Ridge. During these years there were a number of attempts at gold mining in an old Diggings near North Columbia.  The community-organized San Juan Ridge Taxpayers Association led the resistance against these mining efforts.

 Some of the proposed mines were open pit mines, one tunneled deep into the gravels.  In order to tunnel, millions of gallons of groundwater a day were pumped out to dewater the gravels.

The water well for Grizzly Hill School dried up along with many other wells in the neighborhood.  The miners dug new wells, but the new wells were many times deeper, required more expense to pump and the water was undrinkable.  Grizzly Hill School has had to buy bottled water for more than 10 years. 

Community members researched mining issues, the effects on groundwater, the creeks, the ecosystem, and the effects of dust and other types of mining pollution.  Internal coordination was by a phone tree. The Taxpayers Association raised money for experts and lawyers by holding auctions and poetry readings.   The Association coordinated with other neighborhood groups in the County, and gave testimony at public meetings.

In 2012, a new dewatering mine was proposed.    

Stay Back!

Digging through a drawer full of old T-Shirts can do no harm, and as it happens, it can do much good! As we did this very thing, we found a T-Shirt related to the Measure Q campaign, and thus connected to our current tapestry, "Don't Mine Our Water". For those who are not aware, Measure Q was a campaign in the  1980's, led by my very own Grandfather, Jerry Tecklin, to create a county ordinance which would require open pit mining to stay at least 3500 feet away from housing of any kind. The slogan: Stay Back!

 

This was a large part of the campaign against the open pit mining in the 80's and it was something worth putting on the tapestry. Even though Measure Q was defeated at the ballot, it energized many neighborhood groups to fight against the mining industry.

"The 'Measure Q' paper embroidered by moi."

--Josh Tecklin