I can hardly believe it has been almost five years that I’ve been running Change the Shed, my free YouTube tapestry weaving live event. I still do it twice a month and plan on continuing that. I have had so many people support this program through donations and I appreciate all of you more than you’ll ever know. But the time has come to get some more consistent support so this program can continue.
To that end, I’ve started a Patreon page. Patreon is a sort of membership site created to support artists and creators. In general, creators ask for support from people who follow them in exchange for some sort of learning or community opportunity. The membership rates are low and the funds help the creator continue their work.
In my case, I’ll be offering a lot of behind the scenes information for Patreon members that won’t be available anywhere else. I’ll still offer Change the Shed free on YouTube twice a month. I may occasionally do an extra broadcast just for Patreon members and I’ll definitely have some behind the scenes extras about the things I am working on on CTS. I will be moving the show notes for Change the Shed with all the links and tips I’ve been putting on my website to Patreon.
The sampler I am working on on Change the Shed for a new tapestry I’ll also weave on the program.
At higher levels of support I’ll be sharing my personal tapestry work. I’ve just begun working on a large body of work for an upcoming show and I’ll only be talking about that on Patreon. So if you’re interested in how a tapestry studio runs, that is how to find that out!
You can find more information about Patreon and why I’m doing it on THIS page of my website. If you’d like to join me, you can find out about the tiers and how to join on Patreon by clicking the button below.
I’ve already had a lot of fun creating behind the scenes content for Patreon. There are several videos ready for you to watch both about the Change the Shed tapestry I’m starting this month and my new personal work.
Social media has gone a bit sideways lately and for me, Patreon is another way of building community in a place that doesn’t sell my information or put a lot of advertising or click-bait articles in front of me.* I also get a lot more weaving done when I’m not scrolling Instagram. I’m not currently leaving social media because I don’t think we should let ourselves be silenced, but I have to be judicious about what I look at there.
Below is my welcome to Patreon video. I hope you’ll join me! If you get the blog via email, click HERE to see the video.
The next Change the Shed is February 12th at 10:30 am MT (unless I actually get put on a trial as I’ve been called to jury duty in which case we’ll find a different time!). You can find the schedule on my calendar page HERE.
*If you’d like to keep up with what I’m doing, please make sure you’re subscribed to my newsletter, Tapestry Picks. For any creatives you’re used to following on social media, I’d recommend signing up for their newsletters or their creatives pages (Substack or Patreon are examples) or both. Those lists don’t go away or get buried in algorithms.