Intertwine Arts is a NPO that has been conducting weaving workshops for people with disabilities and chronic illnesses since 2016, working alongside hospitals, day habilitation centers, libraries, senior centers, community groups, and more. Because travel can be challenging, both logistically and financially, we bring our workshops and equipment to the centers where those with disabilities receive day services within their communities. Due to accessibility issues and social misperceptions, many disabled people face exclusion from creative opportunities and programs for art making and few have had the opportunity to explore hand weaving as a creative medium. In our programs, participants experience joy, curiosity, and self-confidence as they explore weaving within a supportive and expansive philosophical framework. We address the challenges of creative exclusion by tailoring our programs to meet our audience’s needs, abilities, and interests. We furnish enough support to allow each artist to feel successful. Our workshops provide a valuable social outlet for participants, allowing them to connect over their art. Fiber Arts is coming into its own in contemporary art, fiber art blurs the boundary between craft and fine art. In addition to supporting those with disabilities to become fiber artists, we seek out opportunities for our weavers’ artwork to be exhibited in public settings, including galleries and libraries. Through these exhibitions, as well as our online shop, our artists are able to sell their artworks, receiving 50% of the proceeds.
Prior to 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.