House of the Good Shepherd

Community Footprints

Batik on muslin

Participating Artists – Anonymous

Teaching Artist – Stephanie Piccirilli Wernet 

We are all connected. Together, through art making and conversation, our group of inspired women explored what it meant to be part of a Chicago neighborhood—the neighborhood in which we first landed when we came to this country, had our first child, where we aspired to move, and where we grew up.

We began with mapping out our journeys in Chicago, amazed by the paths all of us once crossed at one time or another. We examined how neighborhood and community make us who we are today; thoughtfully connecting neighborhood and words to describe how our identities are affected by where we have been. We created an impressive paper chain of over 160 links, autographed by each artist with neighborhoods and words to celebrate each others’ paths. We then passed on this chain to the Chinese American Service League women, for their creative additions. We can’t wait to see the final chain at Woman Made Gallery on 10/26.

For our final project, we used a pound of wax and a ton of inspiration! Exploring the ancient art of batik, each artist designed her own flag commemorating her individual idea of neighborhood, Chicago and community. Each day we saw our artwork transform, very much like our own stories. Sharing the experience of batik was inspiring, as everyone in the room was amazed that they too can be artists of this time-honored tradition.