Lori Ashenfelter brought a trimming from a wedding quilt she made for her sister and her sister’s wife. Youssra Abdrabou brought a scarf her mother once used as a hijab. Susan Gallagher brought leftover material from curtains she made for her now-adult daughters’ childhood bedroom.
Each piece of cloth the women brought would become part of a larger tapestry made of fabric strips from community members of all faiths.
Standing by the four-sided loom after weaving in her fabric, Ashenfelter said she selected the material she did because the government “is trying to take rights away from [the LGBTQ+] community.” While some wrote messages on their strips, she opted to keep hers blank.
“I think what the quilt represents is the message,” she said.
Ashenfelter was one of about 20 people who attended Interweaving Sacred Prayers Collaborative on April 26 at Summit Artspace. It was the second session of the event, which was hosted by the Women’s Interfaith Spiritual Heritage and the Akron Area Interfaith Council. A third and final session will take place at Summit Artspace on Thursday, May 8 from 6 to 8 p.m.
Using fabrics or textiles they brought or choosing from a selection on hand, attendees cut their materials into strips, wrote a message on them — a prayer, poem or other meaningful expression — and then went to the six-foot loom and wove their strips into the ever-growing tapestry.
After the final session, the four weavings, one on each side of the loom, would be sewn together to create one large piece. Gallagher, the AAIC president, said it would remain on view at Summit Artspace until June 12. After that, the plan is for the piece to travel around to different local faith organizations, she said.
WISH member Kathy Ress said the organization was inspired by another local group, the Sojourner Truth Project.
“We were so overwhelmed by the presence, mostly of the African American women, and just women in general coming together,” Ress said of that project. “We said, ‘We need to keep this beautiful spirit going. How can we do it?’”
Creating a ‘tapestry of unity’
The idea for a weaving project came from WISH member Jan Alberti, whose daughter is a weaver.
“The goal is to create a tapestry of unity,” Gallagher said. “It’s a celebration of the interconnectedness of all human beings.”
She continued, “So that’s the only goal, and that’s always the goal of the Interfaith Council, is to bring people together, to build relationships and get to know one another and break down the barriers. There’s so much misunderstanding and so much hate based on religion. We want to break down those barriers and help people to realize that we’re all the same.”
When Abdrabou’s mother moved to the United States from Egypt in 2001, she struggled to find hijabs. Abdrabou said her mother had to instead use scarves that were often much shorter than a traditional hijab. To compensate, she would wear an undercap to cover the rest of her hair.
Nowadays, it’s much easier for her mother to find hijabs in the U.S. Abdrabou chose to bring the scarf because she felt it was a perfect representation of the event’s mission to share cultures and faiths.
“I think it’s very important for the Muslim community to be here in general, just for all of us to really unite too,” she said. “We live in a very difficult time in history, and I think that an event like this can help us really understand one another a lot better.”
For Gallagher, the tapestry is a symbol of the work AAIC, WISH and others in the interfaith community are trying to do: bring different people together to create strong connections. Weak connections in a tapestry can lead to holes and cause the piece to unravel, Gallagher said. The same can happen in personal relationships.
“We have to come together more and learn more about one another. That’s what’s gonna make us really stronger, and that’s what makes the tapestry stronger,” Gallagher said. “It makes the tapestry more beautiful when you have all different kinds of materials, all different colors, shapes and sizes.”
