2025 Rust Belt Fibershed Symposium:
Enlivening our place through fiber and textiles
2025 Rust Belt Fibershed Second Annual Symposium: Enlivening Our Place through Textiles
Join us for our second year at 78th Street Studios for a day filled with creativity, inspiration, and community. The Rust Belt Fibershed Symposium is convening regional voices from across our local fiber and textile community.
You'll hear from experts within our community as they discuss how focusing on local, natural fibers, dyes, and labor can create unique and vibrant connections, giving this place of ours more life.
Along with our panel of guest speakers in the morning, the afternoon will be immersive and hands-on: learning stations, vendor tables, a clothing swap, and more! Whether you're a textile enthusiast, designer, farmer, gardener, culture shifter, climate advocate, clothes-wearer (we know you are!), someone who sees the connections between all of our living systems, someone who wants to get plugged into a community, or simply curious about the power of textiles to create an enlivened future, this event is a must-attend.
Just like the importance of the local farm-to-table movement, don't miss out on this inspiring opportunity to be a connect in the foundational work of bringing back a place-based, regional textile system in a responsible way-- a way that boasts joy, connection, purpose, and makes our place in the Rust Belt Region a place where we can thrive (yes, clothes can contribute to this!).
Registration for the 2025 Symposium includes two parts:
PART ONE: Laying the Groundwork for Natural Fibers
Virtual Webinar
Thursday Evening, January 16th
7:00-8:30pm (recording will be available for registrants) via webinar
While the main conference takes place on Saturday, January 25th, in person, we'll start the festivities a week beforehand to lay some foundational groundwork about why natural fibers and dyes are so amazing. We'll hear from a panel of experts on differnt natural fibers and dyes. Learn a little more about the power of wool, alpaca, angora, hemp, flax, and natural color! Registration included in your ticket and recording will be available for a limited time afterwards.
PART TWO: The Main Event: Enlivening our Place through Local Fiber & Textiles
Saturday, January 25th
In-person at 78th St. Studios in Cleveland.
8:30-1:00 bottom floor 78th St. Studios: Speakers, Fashion Show, mingling, refreshments
Registration begins bright and early at 8:15 on Saturday morning at the beautiful 78th Street Studios in Cleveland. Come early and mingle! Opening address begins at 8:50. Exact speaker list to come, but we will hear from soil and water experts, including farmers and researchers, designers and manufacturers, natural builders, and more. We will close out the speaking portion of the morning with a celebratory fashion show showcasing outfits upcycled and made completely from within the Rust Belt Fibershed by local artisans. Pastries, fruit, coffee, and tea will be served.
NOTE: This year, we're offering a virtual streaming option! We're able to stream audio and presentation slides if used. There will be no video of the actual speakers on stage or of the fashion show. See virtual streaming option when registering.
1:00- 2:00 second floor 78th St. Studios: special time for morning-only attendee with first access to clothing swap, vendors, and learning stations.
After the fashion show, we'll head upstairs and connect over hands-on demonstrations, shop local fiber and clothing vendors, connect more with people you heard from during the symposium, learn about aligned organizations in the area, and have the opportunity to participate in a *clothing swap (if you'd like, bring a few well-loved items to drop off in the morning before the symposium and our volunteers will organize!). Please note we will not be offering a formal lunch, but will have plenty of savory and sweet pastries and fruit from Luna bakery throughout morning.
2:00-4:00pm: learning stations and vendors are free and open to the public
The learning stations and vendors will be open to symposium ticket holders only from 1:00-2:00 , and then open to the public for free from 2:00-4:00.
*Clothing Swap: morning ticket holders only so we have time to organize donations. Folks who come to the open-to-the-public portion after 2:00 may take home leftover clothes without swapping.
Hands-on Learning Demos: sewing, mending, crocheting, wet-felting, cordage-making, flax-to-linen processing, suri-alpaca-fleece touching, roving demo, and so much more!
Shop Vendors: fiber straight from local farms, vintage vendors, local cut-and-sew vendors, natural dyers, and more!
WHO IS THIS CONFERENCE FOR?
Anyone who wears clothing, uses bedsheets, pulls curtains closed, has a rug in their home (you get the picture)! More specifically: if your interests include any of the following: Fashion, Agriculture, Gardening, Building, Textiles, Sustainability, Art, Local Economies, Health, Resilience, Climate Action, Animals, Community Building, Ecology, and so much more.
By participating in this symposium, you are directly contributing to momentum to make our Rust Belt region a better place to live. We want to meet you, and we hope to see you there!
SATURDAY, Jan 25th, 78th St Speakers, Fashion Show, Learning Station, & Vendors
1:00*-4:00 Hands-On Learning Stations and Vendors*
1-2pm: morning symposium ticket holders only*
2-4pm: free to general public
*Clothing Swap: morning ticket holders only
Hands-on Learning Demos: sewing, mending, crocheting, wet-felting, cordage-making, flax-to-linen processing, suri-alpaca-fleece touching, roving demo, and so much more!
Shop Vendors: fiber straight from local farms, vintage vendors, local cut-and-sew vendors, natural dyers, and more!
Learn more about how textiles are made, pick up a hobby, go home having supported local organizations and business, and make some new connections!
Click to see more information about:
Speaker Agenda 9am-1pm:
Grounding Beginning
C Stonebraker-Martinez of IRFT Cleveland will be leading a grounding ritual to connect us with the land, peoples and waterways we’re existing in, around, through and with.
Segment 1: Regenerative Fibers: Revitalizing Water and Soil in the Rust Belt
Melissa DuHeim/ Michigan Fibershed & University of Michigan
Kelly Powers/ Powers Acres in Medina, OH & Kyla Werlin /Oxbow Orchard in Cleveland, OH
Nathan Rutz/ Rust Belt Riders in Cleveland, OH
Lauren Hirtle & Casey Brooks/ OEFFA
Segment 2: Building Better: Natural Fiber Solutions for Construction and Landscape
Monica Bongue-Bartelsman/ Great Lakes Natural Fibers, OH
Em Good / Good Building in Cleveland, OH
Segment 3: Full Circle Local: Innovative Tools for Regional Textile Production
Jordon Masters / WVU in Morgantown, WV
Aidan Meany / Found Surface in Cleveland, OH
Segment 4: Creative Practice & Community Building in the Rust Belt
Margaret Sankey/ Lake County, OH
Jess Boeke & Sarah Pottle / Co-Organizers, Rust Belt Fibershed
Segment 5: Material Memories Fashion Show
Sponsorships
Are you a business and interested in sponsoring the 2024 Rust Belt Fibershed symposium? You can easily do so by purchasing a “sponsor ticket” at the link above.
The strength of this conference lies in our community, our collective voices, our co-creation, and also our sponsorships. By giving to the Rust Belt Fibershed 2024 Symposium, you’ll help us accomplish our goal of providing speaker fees to regenerative fiber farmers and processors, offer scholarship tickets, develop print media including but not limited to “Taking Climate Change into my own Closet” workbooks for attendees, postcards, and signs for the event. We’ll also use funding to pay professional photographers and videographers to cover the event so that we can continue to tell the story of how our textiles impact our environment. In appreciation of your donation, we would like to display your name as a Sponsor for the event on our website and at the bottom of print materials for Symposium attendees. After donating, in response to your confirmation email, please send us any logo, website, and an IG social handle in response to this email. We'll ensure it makes it into our printed, presentation, and website materials.
Thank you for helping us make this year’s event a springboard for ecologically-based culture shifts throughout the rest of 2024! If you would like to donate more than $250, you can purchase multiple "tickets" in increments of $250.
We are an official 501(c)3, and all donations are tax-deductible. If you'd like to chat more about partnering with the Rust Belt Fibershed, please reach out to rustbeltfibershed@gmail.com. We'd love to chat more.
Photography/Media Disclaimer
Please be aware that by participating in this event, you are entering an area where photography, audio, and video recording may occur. By your presence, you consent to be photographed, filmed, and/or otherwise recorded.
Your entry constitutes your consent to such photography, filming, and/or recording and to any use, in any and all media throughout the universe in perpetuity, of your appearance, voice, and name for any purpose whatsoever in connection with the [Your Organization's Name].
You understand that all photography, filming, and/or recording will be done in reliance on this consent given by you by entering the event area.
If you do not agree to the foregoing, please let our event staff know so that we can accommodate your preferences.
Thank you for your understanding and support in helping us capture the spirit of this event!
Many, many thanks to the Cleveland Foundation, who have helped make this event possible.