Weaving as Narrative: Responding Through Color, Texture & Form
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What if you responded to a story with color and fiber instead of words? Join us for a hands-on workshop blending Narrative Medicine with free-form weaving. We’ll read a short piece together, then you’ll respond on a handheld loom with a wide range of yarns and textures.
Guided by a prompt, you’ll have 20–30 minutes to create freely, exploring an emotion, memory, or image, and letting fiber become the language of response. We’ll close with time to reflect and optionally share what emerged.
Narrative Medicine is an interdisciplinary practice that draws upon the humanities, creative arts, and clinical practice to deepen our capacity to listen, observe, reflect, and understand the experiences of others.
Intertwine Arts similarly recognizes the power of creative expression, using free-form weaving to inspire creativity, joy, connection, and self-confidence among people of all ages with disabilities and chronic illness.
This evening of weaving and reflection brings these practices together, inviting participants to slow down, pay attention, and respond—not necessarily by finding the “right” answer, but by noticing what arises.
This workshop is for participants with prior weaving experience (no advanced skill required). All materials provided.
About Ria
Prior to her full-time devotion to Intertwine Arts, Ria was a pediatric nurse practitioner at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of NY Presbyterian, Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). Her focus was providing palliative and curative care for children with cancer and life-threatening hematological diseases. Throughout her career, she has been an advocate for integrative therapies, including interventions that promote healing.
Ria recognized that weaving could decrease stress and anxiety as well as enhance self-expression and coping skills. She established a weaving program, which was adaptable to different developmental, physical, and emotional needs, in the pediatric hematology/oncology clinic at CUMC. As an adjunct professor at Bank Street Graduate School of Education, Ria shares her expertise with child life students. She also volunteers in the Arts in Medicine Studio, in the Pediatric Neurology Clinic at CUMC. She is the co-founder and Board President of Intertwine Arts.
About Liz
Liz Matejka-Grossman has dedicated her career to advancing equity for under-resourced and marginalized communities through education. While teaching high school English and ESL in New York City public schools, she created wraparound programs to support at-risk students and their families. She also established Literacy AmeriCorps in Palm Beach County as a project of the Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County to combat high rates of illiteracy, address the needs of young and adult learners, and provide meaningful service and professional development opportunities for AmeriCorps members.
The birth of her first child in 1999, who has the chromosomal anomaly 18q- syndrome, catapulted Liz into accessibility education and deepened her lifelong commitment to inclusion. A professional dancer, she trained at England’s Royal Ballet School before earning her BA from the University of Michigan and graduate degrees from Teachers College, Columbia University, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She later co-founded Sharing the Arts, a nonprofit that enhances the lives of individuals with disabilities and diverse ways of being through inclusive performing arts opportunities.