Education Committee

Program Objectives
To provide area youth a variety of opportunities to learn new skills, develop new interests and explore potential career choices, by exploring the history and cultural relationship between their art and their communities, including their Agricultural communities.

A current project is a proposal to develop programs to be held in the Harbor Springs Public Schools.  These programs, whether structured within the school year or as summer classes and workshops, would focus on the links between fiber animal husbandry, identification and collection of native materials, weaving, twining and other traditional textile arts practiced since ancient times in this unique area of Michigan.  Programs would also explore the natural dyeing of fiber using indigenous materials.  This would include the opportunity to study traditional Michigan Native American surface design themes and purpose, as well as the exploration of textile construction techniques, including traditional finger weaving, as another vehicle for the expression of these traditional as well as contemporary themes.

Community and Youth Education
Cross Village Rug Works Education Committee is developing youth programming in Education for a variety of venues. Support Committee members include Beth Compton, Cheryl Reed, Lynn Dinning, Jennifer Eis, and 4-H leaders Jane Seidler, (Youth Leader for Cheboygan County) and Janet Cieslak, (Youth Leader for Emmet County 4-H.)

Support Committee members include Beth Compton, Cheryl Reed, Pellston High Jane Seidler, Youth Leader for Cheboygan County 4-H and Janet Cieslak, Youth Leader for Emmet County 4-H.

Kris Damon brings an impressive body of academic and field research in Michigan Native Cultures, extensive youth teaching experience through his involvement with the Indianapolis Children’s Museum and the Fort at Mackinac State Historic Parks Colonial Michilimackinac, plus a deep knowledge of the history of ancient Woodland culture and is highly skilled in the execution of a wide variety of ancient Woodland textile handcrafts, including twining, cordage and finger weaving long practiced by the Indigenous peoples of Michigan.