Tooling Camp – Project Fielding, 2016
In June 2017 Project Fielding held a Tooling Camp at the Hyde Park Art Center
Project Fielding:
Project Fielding was founded by Sara Black, Billy Dee, Amber Ginsburg, Miriam Stevens and Donesha Thompson and has expanded to involve Caroline Robe and Lia Rousset. We consider building to be a gesture of craft, which by nature is slow, requires commitment, repetition and revision, much like social change. Building has been largely gendered, yet the knowledge, skill and wisdom that can be born of carpentry and craft processes are invaluable to all. Our choice to work with girls, young women and gender variant youth is born of our experience as women builders in both art and trade contexts. There is a persistent misalignment between the confidence in our capacity to develop building skills and complete large-scale projects and the gender pejorative attitudes we encounter when doing so. Our name, Project Fielding, encompasses both the experience of deflecting unwelcome assumptions and a new direction for the field of building. We propose gender non-conforming building as the vehicle for crafting confidence through physically manipulating materials. This program will accomplish this in two ways: Tooling Camps and Field-Build projects.
Tooling Camps:
Project Fielding leads workshops for female identified and gender variant youth and adults to learn to design and build structures and use woodworking tools competently and confidently. These camps will be physically hosted by local arts and culture organizations. Camps will be led by a core group of skilled women and gender non-conforming builders. We will lead students through the design and planning of objects or structures and teach them to use hand and power tools. Return students will move into teaching roles as skills permit. The camps will seek a sliding scale fee based on ability to pay. This fee will be used for insurance coverage for the host organization, stipends for the workshop leaders, blade replacement and lunches for participants. We aim to supplement the fees of non-paying students through fundraising, professional development funds and grants. It is also our hope to auction the designed objects that our student-participants build as a means of supporting Project Fielding.
