Dip your toes into the world of textiles during MASS MoCA’s Textile Repair Salon! Join regional practitioners Jena Duncan and Elsa Cousins from Swanson’s Fabrics Stash House and MASS MoCA museum educators for a casual evening of textile repair, embroidery, and small-scale weaving.

Participants are welcome to bring textile objects or clothing in need of repair and learn the skills to mend them with support from the Swanson’s Fabric teaching staff. Mending is for everyone; no sewing experience is required! This project aspires to build an exciting culture of clothing reuse and repair by empowering and inspiring our local community to learn how to make, mend, and maintain their clothing and textiles. This workshop is also for community members concerned about the sustainability and environmental impact of textiles who may not see themselves as able to sew.

If you don’t have a repair, don’t worry! MASS MoCA Museum Educators will give instruction on small-scale weaving and invite participants to contribute to our community weaving project currently on view. 

Bring your friends, bring a date. Refreshments are available to purchase from MASS MoCA’s bar. No experience required; all materials included, although participants are welcome to bring their own and share with others.

About the educators:
Jena Duncan (they/them) is a fiber arts artist passionate about community building. They share sewing as a liberatory and healing practice to feel more at home in our bodies and help keep textiles out of the landfill by extending their use. Jena founded Blushing Mustard Studios in Greenfield’s Madhouse Multi-Arts, offering gender- and fat- affirming clothing alterations, repairs, and custom commissions. They teach sewing and mending classes at Swanson’s Fabrics, a second-hand textile store and education center in Turners Falls. Jena also works as an art installer and fabricator, helping artists bring their work to life, most recently at MASS MoCA, MCLA’s Gallery 51, and UMASS’s University Museum of Contemporary Art. 

Elsa Cousins, Director of Education at Swanson’s Fabrics, is an artist and educator teaching mending and sewing classes at Swanson’s Fabrics Stash House, local libraries, and community spaces, as well as environmental science classes at UMass Amherst and Holyoke Community College. They have a PhD in Environmental Conservation from UMass, and are exploring the intersection between sustainability and textiles through mending, alterations, and custom sewing commissions with second-hand textiles. They also run a popular weekly mending night at Swanson’s Fabrics Stash House.

Swanson’s Fabrics Stash House:
Swanson’s Fabrics is a community fabric and fiber craft store in Turners Falls, MA, stocked with the unused items of other sewers. It is a thrift store with a mission to supply everyone with affordable materials while helping those with too much to reduce their stashes in a comfortable way. The Stash House is the educational branch of Swanson’s Fabrics, and our goal is to empower you to make and repair your own fiber goods and clothes, and equip you for that journey with education and tools. The Stash House offers workshops, materials, and community space to foster the exploration of fiber arts and sewing. We value the knowledge-sharing that happens organically in community spaces just as much as the formal teaching that happens during classes and workshops. 

Support is provided by The Coby Foundation, Ltd.