Community Corner

Woodinville Woman Starts Organization to Share Craft Skills

Michele Lang's desire to live sustainably has led to her starting a nonprofit organization that aims to bring back some of the lost craft arts through mentoring workshops.

 

Centuries ago, it was common practice for hand-craft skills to be taught by experienced craftworkers who passed their skills to the next generation. After spending a year transitioning her family to a more sustainable lifestyle, Michele Lang of Woodinville realized there was still a need for many of those bygone craftworks.

“Whether it was a mother teaching her daughter how to sew a quilt for the family or an apprentice woodworker learning to build furniture, it was an established part of community culture to pass down craftwork knowledge, thereby preserving the skills and enabling the self-sufficiency of individuals,” she said. “These skills were critical both to personal survival and to providing a source of income.”

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Contrasting that with recent years, she points out there has been a steady decline in this passing-down of traditional skills between generations of family members and the existence of apprentice relationships. Her experience with her family during the past year -- raising chickens, making butter and household cleaners and repurposing old clothes into new kids' t-shirts -- made her realize there is still a need for mentors to pass down those skills.

With a degree in environmental policy and work experience that spans from Greenpeace to Microsoft, Lang felt it was time to take the skills she had learned homesteading on her family’s Woodinville land to the community at in large. The resulting organization is Sharecraft, a way to help people discover what they can make with their hands. From woodworking to engine repair, baking to book binding, Sharecraft aims to help people explore what they can make and give them the tools, expertise and materials to make it happen. 

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Beginning as an after-school youth program, Lang hopes to eventually expand to offer classes to adults. Sharecraft participants are introduced to heirloom skills through hands-on projects.

“Through the loss of basic hand-craft skills our great-grandparents relied on, we have both decreased self-reliance of individuals as well as accelerated the removal of these skills from our community’s collective memory,” Lang said. “In our modern industrialized society with the globalized production and transfer of goods, people may question the need for preserving these skills: Machines and factory workers exist to create these products, why should I learn to sew a dress when I can go to my local discount retailer and purchase one for $30?”

The reason, Lang said, it to explore the creative process and build self-confidence in being able to produce garments, food, crafts and to other real goods rather than just buy them.

Her vision for Sharcraft is to have a stable of crafts people who want to mentor others to teach heirloom skills and be a collective that has the tools and equipment to offer the novice.

“Because it is less common to hand down tools and equipment, i.e. your grandmother’s sewing machine, the burden of acquiring necessary equipment may be enough of a deterrent to prevent one from getting started in a particular field of craft,” she said. “By providing tools, equipment and materials, Sharecraft removes the resource barrier.”

Lang just launched Sharecraft last Fall, with a few pilot classes at Woodinville Montessori. Now she is ready to branch out and find more crafts people to offers workshops and more venues that want to host Sharecraft classes.

Anyone interested in getting involved with Sharecraft can visit the website here, or email info@share-craft.org or check out the Facebook page.


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