Photo: Workshop participant Jennifer Fitzpatrick Salazar communes with her inchworm creation. Photo by Alice V. Schneider, courtesy of Hatch.

Last month in Hamtramck, Mich., women gathered for an old-fashioned sewing circle activity under the tutelage of Mary Fortuna, an artist known throughout the region for her handmade sculptures and figurines. (Read more about Fortuna in this Knight Blog artist profile from last year.)

The sewing circle was hosted by Hatch, an art center that encompasses a gallery, studio space for artists, and the Hatch Art Library, which won a $20,000 Knight Arts Challenge grant in 2013. With the goal of fostering a community of local art collectors, the library lends out works by Detroit artists to area residents, who are able to display the art in their homes for up to two months. It’s an effort to build a bridge between local artists and the greater community.

This summer, Hatch launched a new series of workshops, Hands On at Hatch Art, that also aims to get locals invested and involved with the city’s creative set. Led by Fortuna and eagerly attended by artists and non-artists alike, the workshops held to date have focused on manual activities like making dolls and papier-mâché masks. Most recently, participants were tasked with DIY insect-building–a project that leveraged a skill set Fortuna has developed through her own art-making.

The scene around the table at Hatch’s insect workshop. Photo by Alice V. Schneider, courtesy of Hatch.

Fortuna created the workshop series with the help of Alice V. Schneider, the library director and gallery coordinator at Hatch. 

“Alice and I decided to do this when we saw [that] places had opened up where people pay money to sit in a room together, drink wine and make a pre-selected, cookie-cutter art object under the guidance of a teacher,” Fortuna said. “We both had a hunch people would enjoy a workshop where they could get together and make something fun that they might actually want, and might learn something useful in the process. Voilà: Hands On at Hatch Art.”

The popularity of these workshops and similar activities reflects a baseline desire to make things by hand, even in an era of easy and cheap manufacturing. Also a draw: camaraderie and an exchange of viewpoints and information like the one that took place among the women assembled for the sewing circle workshop (possibly the ulterior motive behind sewing circles since time immemorial!).

The products of these workshops were pretty delightful, as well.

Lori Koran displays her quirky new friend. Photo by Alice V. Schneider, courtesy of Hatch.

Fortuna said the next Hands On at Hatch Art workshop is scheduled for a Monday evening in September, with the exact date still to be announced. The focus of the event will be collage–a medium that is also the subject of “The Collage Show,” which opens in the main gallery at Hatch on Sept. 5. Illustrations by Andrea Del Rio are on view at Hatch’s auxiliary display space, Café 1923, through Sept. 20.