Residents can walk into the Saint Mary's College Museum of Art in Moraga starting Sunday, Oct. 11, and help weave a collaborative woven fiber artwork alongside artist April Camlin.

The museum's new "Reciprocal Weaving" residency offers five free, drop-in workshops in the William Keith Gallery, according to the college. No experience is needed.

The woven work participants help create will become part of "Interwoven," a Spring 2027 exhibition at the museum.

Camlin, an Oakland-based artist, educator and healthcare advocate, draws on the writings of author Robin Wall Kimmerer. In reciprocal weaving, two people work a loom together, each becoming the other's right and left side in a back-and-forth rhythm of treading and passing the shuttle.

The residency also carries a public-health thread. Workshops fall during the federal open-enrollment period for subsidized healthcare, and the museum said the sessions will help people understand changes to the U.S. healthcare system. Camlin's broader practice examines inequities in how Americans experience care.

Camlin described the residency's emotional core as "processing the grief that we experience as we navigate living in our complicated bodies in a society with an often unjust and difficult to navigate healthcare system."

She holds an MFA from UC Davis, where she now lectures, according to her website. She was a 2024–25 graduate fellow at the Headlands Center for the Arts and for years ran a free weaving school out of her studio in Baltimore.

All five workshops run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The schedule:

  • Sunday, Oct. 11
  • Wednesday, Oct. 14
  • Wednesday, Oct. 28
  • Wednesday, Nov. 4
  • Saturday, Nov. 21

No registration is required for individuals. Groups of more than five should sign up through a form on the museum's website. Admission to the museum is free.

The museum is at Saint Mary's College of California in Moraga. For questions, call (925) 631-4379 or email [email protected].

Upcoming at SMCMoA:

  • Public tours run on select Thursdays at 11 a.m. and Saturdays at 2 p.m. through December.
  • The museum will be closed Nov. 25–29 for Thanksgiving.