Earthen Comforts: Weaving Shade

Join Artist Maria Maea underneath the pavilion Earthen Comforts for a workshop exploring local material, weaving craft, and the cultivation of urban comfort. Participants will learn about honorable harvesting within the city of Los Angeles, and clean, de-thorn, weave, and shape palm fronds into personal shade- and breeze-making devices.

Earthen Comforts is a courtyard installation by Liz Gálvez that stages mass and fiber as shared infrastructures against intensifying heat. Adapting passive cooling strategies from desert contexts, the project modulates shade, air movement, and light to offer visitors an experience of varied microclimates in the M&A x Craft Contemporary Courtyard.

Maria Maea is a multidisciplinary artist working in sculpture, installation, performance, film, and sound. Through her art practice, she deepens her connection to land, somatic memory, and ancestry. Her works act as a residue of her lived experience as a first generation Los Angeleno of Samoan and Mexican heritage. Using plants and repurposed found material gathered throughout Los Angeles, Maea builds film set-like sculptures that relate to storytelling & myth-making.

Programs at Earthen Comforts are organized by Materials & Applications and produced as part of the M&A x Craft Contemporary Partnership. M&A is committed to providing programs to the public that are accessible and free to attend. Program tickets are now offered on a sliding scale starting at $0. Purchases of greater value contribute to artist fees, materials, and operating costs, and larger donations are always welcome and appreciated! Visit www.materialsandapplications.org for more information.