Request for Proposals

/REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

Attention Community-Oriented Craftspeople, Artisans, and Community Groups

I have 300 yards of wool yarn
handspun on a drop spindle
at various locations around Columbia, SC

Help me turn it into a win-win-win exercise in
community-building for Columbia.

Deadline for submission: May 1, 2008
No monetary award involved

More information: www.communityhandworks.blogspot.com
And www.metaphorsabound.blogspot.com


Metaphors Abound
Proposal Guidelines

Project is limited to Columbia, SC.

There is not a structured proposal format, but the following information must be included:

Contact information: Name of individual (or name of contact person if a group is applying); full address; telephone number(s); email addresses

Detailed plan and detailed timeline for how you will use the yarn. This includes people involved (either definite or specifically projected); space needed; anticipated need for (which?) supplies; if funds are required, how they will be obtained and used; how you will document and publicize your project; and an explanation of the community-building interaction – what is planned, how it will benefit Columbia, how your plans fit the Community Handworks model. The need for flexibility is understood, but detailed plans indicate a serious intent to follow through. (Be sure to read through the entire Community Handworks blog as well as the Metaphors Abound blog. They will provide an understanding of the intent of this project as well as some hints for carrying out projects.)

General plan and timeline of your idea for the next winning chain. How does your part of the project spin off to the next phase? While you cannot precisely determine what the next phase will be, your plan MUST include in its design the handing off of something that will continue the win-win-win for the community. Your proposal should include an outline of your vision. Feel free to include more than one “next step” in idea form.

A statement that, should you be awarded the Community Handworks yarn, you pledge to carry out your proposed phase of the project and, together with me, will make sure that the phase after yours is carried out. Each person or group who conducts a phase must be involved in some way in the continuation of the project as it goes along.

A statement that, should you be awarded the yarn, you agree to having your name (or group name) and idea posted on the Metaphors Abound website. No personal contact information will be posted unless specifically requested.

A statement indicating whether or not you agree to having your idea posted on the Community Handworks website even if your idea is not chosen for the Metaphors Abound project. One of the goals of the site is to share ideas!

Submit proposals by the deadline to: communityhandworks at yahoo.com with “Metaphors Abound” in the subject line. The proposal must be in the body of the email, not in an attachment.

Questions? Contact communityhandworks at yahoo.com with “Questions about Project” in subject line.

Progress

One half of the yarn has been spun and plied into a skein of 2-ply, about 150 yards total. It is multi-hued and mottled with the plying.

The remaining roving should make about the same yardage.

For artists, artisans, and creative community-minded folks in Columbia, SC: Shortly after Labor Day 2007, I will advertise a Request for Proposals for the use of this yarn in a Community Handworks project. My hope is that I can generate more than one idea.

Since this project so far is entirely my own - and there will be no monetary award of any kind - I will be the one deciding whose project receives the yarn. But if I receive some good ideas, I will publish them here. I have no idea what will happen.

Check http://www.communityhandworks.blogspot.com/ for the concepts of this project.
Email me a communityhandworks at yahoo.com with questions.

I will finish the second skein during the spring-summer of 2007. Start mulling over creative community-building ideas!

A note from my journal of the spinning:
I’ve been thinking about that skein of yarn. It is out where I can see it every day. At first I was sort of disappointed with it. Colors are nice – but the roving did that, and I purchased the roving.

I would look at the skein and see the exploded cop of singles and the exploded cop of plied. I would look more closely and see some strands of the skein nicely, evenly spun and plied and some under or over spun/ under or over plied. Not the way I want my yarn to turn out. (I'm not used to spinning in public, moving around, answering questions, having my focus directed to things other than the spinning. You can tell.)

But the more I looked at it, the more I realized that as a Community Handworks project, it is wonderful. The spinning didn’t go exactly the way I wanted it to, but it went together. Yet another metaphor for community: it is not easy; it is not neat; it has flaws and frustrations, weak points, and fuzziness. But it spun together and holds together as a community of fiber.

There is very little more we can ask, no? Our communities are never perfect, easy, or without frustration. But our hope is that we hold together and are stronger for it.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. -The Dalai Lama

The Plan So Far

I decided that spinning on the Statehouse grounds would be a nice symbol, not of political spin but of combining disconnected fibers of the community into a strengthened unit of yarn.

I began in February, 2007 spending some lunch hours and some weekend hours spinning with a drop spindle and chatting with folks who wanted to stop to ask what I was doing. I then decided that I really needed to get out and about town with this project. I have gone to the Southeast branch of the library a couple of times. I plan to try to visit as many parks (and other locations?) as I can.

The resulting yarn then needs to move the winning chain forward in some manner. Since this is the first project, my plan is to advertise for other creative folks who can brainstorm how this yarn might be used in a Community Handworks kind of way. In that way, I'll be able to share the idea of community building through creative work.

Right now, I am concentrating on getting the yarn spun - in public and in various locations throughout the community.

Sometimes when we are generous in small, barely detectable ways it can change someone else's life forever. -Margaret Cho

Origin of the idea

I work downtown, just a couple of blocks from the Statehouse. I have often thought of spending a lunchtime or two sitting on the benches in the sun on cold days spinning roving into yarn on a drop spindle.

This came to mind for several reasons: I like to spin; spinning in public is usually an opportunity for folks to watch something unfamiliar and interesting; it would be a convenient and productive way to spend a lunch hour, and the Statehouse grounds are the closest park-like place to my office. In addition, there is the wry and sort of playful association with the political spin machine.

Making a subtle comment about political spin by doing actual spinning is sort of fun, even if it points down a road toward negative thoughts. But then I thought about what actual spinning actually does: it twists separate fibers tightly together to make a unified and strong yarn. Now there is a metaphor pointing in a positive direction!

But why spin every day? Is it not enough if we spin now and then for the cloth we need? But then, this would only be a worldly or secular activity. Spinning daily is spiritual; it indicates an inner desire to do what we can for our country. The thread we spin binds us day by day....

-Gandhi