Joelle Wellansa Sandfort & Shelby Seier
Over / Under: A Community Weaving Project
Over / Under is a series of free outdoor community weaving sessions held at nontraditional arts sites in Omaha using found and repurposed materials. The sessions are designed to welcome participants of all ages, dis/abilities, and backgrounds, emphasizing engaging communities that may often face barriers to attending arts events through radically inclusive accommodations and thoughtful hospitality. In addition to providing collaborative looms, we aim to offer accessible, engaging programming and activities related to fiber arts and community building during the weaving sessions.
About the Artists
Joelle is an interdisciplinary artist who takes an experimental approach to traditional craft processes. She makes drawings, tapestries, and assemblages with repurposed materials. In her work, she explores how textiles relate to bodies, their connection to storytelling, and how they carry cultural information and memory. Her practice is rooted in the folk craft traditions of her Ethiopian and Nebraskan heritages. She combines gifted textiles that hold family history with objects she collects in her daily life. She considers how each material relates and conflicts with each other. Through these assemblages, she imagines how the complexities of cultural identity and family history can exist within one body.
Shelby Seier is a disabled cultural access worker and artist rooted in the prairie. She founded All Kinds Accessibility Consulting, a creative accommodations consultancy that practices access as an art form and as a way to deepen relationships. She makes accessible spaces and resources, improvisational quilts, and exclusively draws beds and chairs – two of her favorite assistive aids – on found paper. Her background in theater, dance, and improvisational comedy lends itself to her practice of fostering cultures of access needs, sometimes through participatory design. Shelby is an Amplify Arts Generator Grant and ONE Omaha grants recipient, an ACRE resident, and will attend Movement Research’s A.M.P. Residency in the fall.
Both artists began working together in the winter of 2022 in preparation for the show “On Hold” at Fleabane Gallery. At the heart of their collaborative artistic practice is a shared interest in explorative weaving techniques and a belief in the power of art events to strengthen relationships in their community. Both artists practice making nature looms, where foraged objects are woven on looms made of naturally found materials. The two artists are excited to expand this calming and accessible practice to the larger Omaha community through Over / Under.
