Busy Hands And Community Are Woven Into Textural Art At Hart

In my junior high home-ec class, I couldn’t run from the sewing machines fast enough. The teacher, Mrs. Jewett (who, we suspected in an ironic twist, had antisemitic tendencies) made the whole sewing process so thoroughly unpleasant that I still can’t hear the word bobbin without involuntarily shuddering.

But textile artist Jamie Goldenberg may be able to help heal that psycho-sewing damage. In her studio and now in her Great Barrington combined shop/studio Hart she leads sewing classes and modern sewing circles that have evolved into a Tuesday Night Sewing club. That just might banish my nightmares about threading a Singer in under a minute.

“It’s like a poker night, but you leave with something you made,” Goldenberg says. In the first class, the project is a lined tote bag. Eventually, sewers work their way up to garments, a dress or a shirt. “It feels good and empowering as an adult to learn something,” she says.

Goldenberg insists that the adults in her sewing class make items for themselves, not for their kids. A single mother of two young children, she knows about the pressures to be a perfect parent, and how parents often put their own needs aside.

“It’s so easy to lose your identity in the madness of caring for small people,” she says. “I’m a better parent when I take care of my own creative needs. This class is something just for them.”

Located above the Berkshire Coop (Goldenberg is the first business tenant in the space), Hart is a busy place: a studio for textile enthusiasts of all levels, a retail space that carries art and objects made by Goldenberg and by other local artists, and Goldenberg’s own working studio.

Clearly, the sewing classes hit a nerve...and a need. When their first session ended, students wanted to continue, and the “club” was formed. They met and created their projects together. During the summer, they worked with a vintage pattern to make a shirt, then hand-dyed it using natural dyes from local plants, another process Goldenberg has mastered and teaches. “We hang out, talk, make stuff,” Goldenberg says.

Along with sewing classes (basics, garment sewing and sewing for teens), Goldenberg offers other workshops: a two-day weaving intensive; a three-hour basket-making class; and weaving for little hands. She’s in the process of scheduling more classes and groups.

Is there anything Goldenberg can’t do if it involves texture? At Hart you’ll find her one-of-a-kind garments, often created out of antique fabrics and fashioned into quirky versions of suits, shorts, slippers, even lace undergarments and linen tool belts. From her looms there are wall hangings, pillows, rugs. Her metal bud vases are adorable headless figures just waiting to be fitted with wildflowers. The store also carries tiny looms for take-home mini projects as well as yarns (Goldenberg teaches knitting, too).

Those dexterous fingers of hers didn’t always weave, knit, dye and cast. Originally from Connecticut, Goldenberg attended Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, and the Berkshires became the home that she couldn’t leave for long. She studied photography, worked at Orion Magazine for a while, then as a photojournalist and photo editor in the city. She had taken ceramics classes at IS183, but ceramics wasn’t conducive to apartment living, so she took up weaving, which scratched the same mindful creative itch as ceramics — and she could easily store it.

By 2013 she was freelancing in photography and weaving more. She became a resident artist at the Textile Arts Center in New York, and interior design clients began commissioning pieces from her. Three years later, missing countryside, she moved to Greenport, near Hudson, where she reached out to Katherine Daugherty, who ran Drop Forge and Tool, a makerspace that offered workshops and creative residencies. Daugherty introduced Goldenberg to the textile artists and the community she craved.

She also missed the Berkshires, and returned to Great Barrington three years ago, where she and her then-husband received a grant to renovate and convert the former Country Curtains mill in Housatonic into artist spaces. She started workshops and participated in a popup artist collaborative on Railroad Street, and moved her studio from the Housatonic mill to her current location.

Goldenberg has taught professional practices for senior students at Parsons and conducts workshops outside of her own studio. She continues to a lot of commissioned work; the new Ace Hotel in Brooklyn ordered artwork for 20 rooms that took her a year to complete.

“I decided to consolidate my studio and shop because I wanted to get into more fiber arts classes and community events,” Goldenberg says. ”I feel like I’m appealing more to people who have roots here, or live in the area. Selfishly, I want a lot of artists around me. I’m tapping into that community. It’s here.”