The Soros Arts and Culture grant program has awarded three Interarts faculty a grant for their project: Crafting Women’s Stories: Lives in Georgian Felt. The three (Clifton Meador, Melissa Potter, and Miriam Schaer) bring together a variety of expertise to facilitate the project.


Through a three-week artists’ book collaboration during Columbia’s J-Term, the Crafting Women’s Stories project will offer the opportunity to translate personal experiences as artists’ books with a local craft heritage tradition: felting. The project brings together a relational aesthetic approach to craft practice, with the goal of fostering awareness of women’s lives in a specific region of the Republic of Georgia.

Using a workshop approach, participants will create artistic objects that embody and explore issues central to women’s lives. Exhibiting the objects will create a powerful context for discussions about women’s rights, roles, and experiences that will raise awareness of how critical these issues are in both the community in the Republic of Georgia, as well as in the global sphere. Upon their return from the workshop, the faculty and participants will plan a future exhibition of works at Columbia’s Center for Book and Paper Center Arts.