Star Blanket
Sojourners
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Each diamond in the Star Blanket created by the Sojourners contains symbols of peace. The Sojourners exchanged their Star Blanket with the group Learning by Heart, Liberty Village Cohousing in Union Bridge, MD, USA.
“Sojourners is a group of creative women founded in 2008 by Naida Brotherston who wanted to build a community for creative women of any age and skill level, and who would be interested in working in any or several artistic media, including those art forms often considered craft. The idea was to put the focus not on the quality or market value of the art, but rather on self-exploration and self-expression. At the core of this undertaking would be the building of a community of women in a way that offered them emotional safety, with total freedom and confidence to push the boundaries of their creativity. They could share their work within the group at whatever level they were comfortable.
“Sojourners started out with 11 women ranging in age from 36 to 65, with artistic expression experience from none to semi-professional. Since then, our ages have leapt to 52 to 78! While our numbers have gone up and down, there is always a core of us who had joined Naida at the very beginning and are intending to continue as long as a sketch book, paint brush, pencil, scissors, sewing needle, camera, or any other implement can still be used to express our creativity. Sojourners, presently numbering 10, have continued to meet monthly for the past 16 years, in person or via Zoom during the pandemic.
“We use a round-robin format, wherein each woman has a journal (sketchbook, box, binder, etc.) and these are rotated from person to person each month. Each artist creates one or two pieces of art for the journal’s owner and adds it/them to the journal. The first journal entries are by the owner, through which she introduces herself to the group, provides an artist’s statement, and/or sets a creative intention for the coming year. The journals are not discussed or revealed to the owners for the duration of the creative period, which usually lasts for 10 months (no meetings are held in July or August). This process serves several purposes. The fact that the journals are not seen in their entirety until the end of the series adds an air of mystery and excitement to the process and leads to a celebration of sharing at the end of the creative cycle. The gifting of art to others opens a kind of freedom, in that, once added to someone else’s journal, the art is out of the creator’s hands and on a journey of its own. In a subtle way, this process also validates that the art is of value, ready to be gifted to the recipient. Also, the creation of art for another person often deepens the sense of community within our group, since each person pays attention to other group members throughout the year in order to be able to develop art for that person’s journal that reflects the receiver’s individuality.”
Lindsay Hope-Ross
