Since 2018 Feral Fabric has led backpatch, banner, quilt, and cape making workshops at art institutions and in the community. Our workshops look at fabric as a tool for communication, and continue the Bay Area’s tradition of radical textile production and clothing modification.

We see these workshops as part of the lineage of Native Funk and Flash, DIY, Punk, story quilts and political banners. Because of Covid, in 2020 and 2021 we also modified our in-person workshops for Zoom, and developed DIY kits as a way to bring workshops together virtually.

In our backpatch workshops, we encouraged participants to celebrate their identity and get a little weird using applique and other surface decoration techniques. We have also led free workshops where participants made fabric signs, capes, and banners to self-represent and share community values. 

In 2020 Feral Fabric started a series of story quilt workshops with members of unhoused comunities, which evolved to distributing free craft and mend kits with partner organizations, and donating workshop materials to homeless shelters in the Bay Area.

Also in 2020, Feral Fabric was commissioned by Berkeley Art Center to create a community banner artwork to hang outside their building during Covid. This project was realized using DIY kits with instructions on how to participate and an optional zoom workshop. The final banner included work by over 40 neighbors, seniors, school kids, artists, unhoused community, and others.

1. May Day 2019
2. Tenderloin 2019
3. Oakland Pride 2018
4. Figment 2018
5. SF Mission 2019
6. Here/There Camp 2020
7. Sunday Streets 2019
8. Berkeley Art Museum 2018
9. Zoom Berkeley Art Center 2020

 
Workshop Archive

2021    Back Patch Zoom Workshop. SCRAP, SF
2021    Appliqué Workshop. Southern Exposure Youth Advisory Board, SF
2021    Back Patch Zoom Workshop. Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley
2020   Community Banner Workshop. Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley
2019    Back Patch Workshop. NIAD Art Center, Richmond
2019    Community Banner Workshop. Sunday Streets, Western Addition, SF
2019    Wearable / Cape Workshop. Sunday Streets, Tenderloin, SF
2019    Back Patch Workshop. Sunday Streets, Mission District, SF
2019    May Day Sign Workshop. Frank Ogawa Plaza,  Oakland
2018    Oakland Pride Banner Workshop. Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland
2018    Back Patch Workshop. Figment : De-Commodified Participatory Art Event, Mosswood Park, Oakland
2018    Back Patch and Banner Workshop. Berkeley Art Museum