Working with Young Women: Papermaking from the Borderlands

It was such a pleasure to spend our second summer holding Spiral: Young Women’s Permaculture Summer Program at Dig In Farm in Massachusetts. We spent the month of July exploring permaculture design, farming, jumping in waterfalls, and diving into work around justice.

As part of the program, we spent time learning about the US-Mexico border, as well as structural causes of inequality, bias, and injustice. This summer we dove deep. Beyond learning about these larger patterns, we explored the personal and the local. 

As part of Mending Patriotism, we engaged in making paper from clothes collected on the border. After a few years of making quilts, we have lots of small scraps saved up that are ideal for incorporating into recycled paper. The students blended pieces of used paper with tiny squares of the clothes, creating beautiful, petal-like forms. 

Our hope is to brainstorm what might now belong on this special paper. Could we write letters to our representatives? Print stories of living on borders, literal and figurative? The ideas were numerous
and inspired…we will report back what happens!

Thank you to all of the incredible Spiral participants who helped with this project!