Project Fielding:
Project Fielding is a teacher’s collective that holds power tool camps and design build workshops for femme identified and gender variant youth and adults who want to learn to use woodworking tools, build designed objects and structures for their own lives or that support the work of other social justice organizations. Woodworking and construction remain highly gendered fields, and yet the knowledge, skill and wisdom that can be born of them are invaluable to all. We are builders, and together we build our world. Our name, Project Fielding, encompasses both the experience of deflecting unwelcome assumptions about a person’s capacity based on gender, and a new direction for the fields of woodworking and construction. We endeavor to create positive change through two programs: Tooling Camps and Field Builds.
Tooling Camps:
Project Fielding leads workshops for female identified and gender variant youth and adults to learn to use woodworking tools competently and confidently. These camps have been physically hosted by local arts and culture organizations and it is our hope that in the future we will have a shop of our own! Camps are led by a core group of skilled women and non-binary builders. Students are led through the construction of a designed object using the full array of hand and power tools in the shop. The camps seek a sliding scale fee based on ability to pay. This fee is used for insurance coverage for the host organization, stipends for the workshop leaders, tool maintenance and building materials. We supplement the fees of non-paying students through fundraising, professional development funds and grants.
Field Builds:
Our core group of skilled builders design and build structures for and with social justice organizations who could benefit from some form of infrastructure (a modular structure, a cart, a shelter, etc). This program invites women and gender-variant people of all ages, including former tooling campers, to participate in the construction of the structure(s). This facet of the project ensures that we connect and build community with social service, social justice and activist organizations with whom we share principles and with whom we endeavor to build a more just and inclusive world. To date, we have created two versions of Resistance Architecture with and for the #LetUsBreathe Collective, STOP (Southside Together Organizing for Power), and The Sweetwater Foundation.
For whatever level of engagement our participants join us, it is our goal that they will have the significant experience of overcoming potential fear or barriers of access to power tools. Participants will develop confidence specific to the experience of seeing one’s hands visually manipulate materials into sturdy and beautiful structures in the rare context of being surrounded by competent and confident woman and gender variant carpenters only. Project Fielding nurtures the power of collaboration and cooperation. It is a safe haven.