Art For Comfort

ART MATERIALS NEEDED
Small balls or skeins of yarn spun:
- wool
- cashmere
- mohair
- cotton
- rayon
- silk
- bamboo or other plant-based fibers

Silk or cotton fabric remnants (2 x 2 feet or larger) for the backing of the pillows, in the following colors:
- black
- deep red/wine
- brown
- purple

Art material donations can be dropped off at the Guest House directly, from 9am to 5pm, or sent by mail. Click here for address and directions. Thank you for your donation!

Zen Hospice Project is pleased to work with the California College of the Arts on a textile project that engages our residents and their families in telling their unique life stories. In the Fall of 2010, students from California College of the Arts collaborated with Zen Hospice Project through a course entitled ‘Presence and Absence.’ For this class, nine undergraduate art, design, and writing students focused their studies on end-of-life care as they worked to create pillows for the Guest House. Each pillow was created in the spirit of honoring and remembering a resident of the Guest House. We are pleased that a new class of students will be at the Guest House for the Spring 2012 semester.

The experience of spending time with each resident informs and shapes the design of his/her memorial pillow. The imagery is created using a ‘free-form knitting and crochet’ technique that is enriched by participation from multiple individuals including hospice volunteers, staff, hospice residents, family members, friends, and the students themselves.

By creating a pillow for each of our Guest House residents, the art students encounter the profound intersection of story telling, creative expression, and being with dying. And in turn, these pillows embody the qualities of touch, memory, intimacy, and comfort that are so essential to care at the end of life.

The pillows are sewn by hand in the spirit of the Funzoe-style monk robes that date back to the time of the Buddha.  Just as monk robes were created from discarded fabric, rags, and later from donated cloth, we are asking for donations of yarn and fabric that are left over from past projects.

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