Visual Storytelling with Story Cloth

Date: 📆 Sunday March 15, 2026 

Time: 9:30am–4:00pm Pacific Time 
Location: NWCEAI Studio: 1631 15th Ave. W. Ste 305 | limited to 15 participants
Facilitator: Topaz Weis, REACE
Cost: $199.00

Registration Deadline: Thursday March 12, 2026

Story Cloth is a form of non-verbal self expression that can depict experiences of joy, inspiration and healing. Experiences of trauma or grief, that may be hard to express in words, can also be crafted on fabric in an easily understood language of personal expression.

This workshop taps into a creative revival of passing on family stories, recovering dream imagery or making political statements in cloth as many cultures around the world have done for generations. Come to the studio and stitch, tack, weave or hot glue your personal story in this six hour celebration of fabric, yarn and mixed media materials. A short video and guided visualization will help get you on the path to accessing imagery containing personal meaning to craft your own story cloth. Please bring a journal as there will be a writing component to the process.

The facilitator, Topaz Weis will be offering a framework for understanding Story Cloth across cultures and through time. She will help brainstorm and lend her expertise to any materials or technique challenges.

Learning objectives

1. Participants will learn how community can be built by using sociometry.
2. Participants will learn how various cultures have used story cloth throughout the ages.
3. Participants will identify images, colors and forms that their imaginations can help in accessing memories.
4. Participants will use guided visualization to identify the story that needs to be told in the moment.
5. Participants will engage in a creative process can bring clarity to their lives.
6. Participants will learn how story cloth is an accessible practice to tell individual & community stories.
7. Participants will learn how speaking to the images created can illuminate important information about their lives.
8. Participants will learn how the intermodal process of starting with visualization, moving to writing then art-making, then writing again can help bring us in an intimate relationship with truth.

Required Materials

• Many materials will be provided; however, please bring fabric scaps, trimmings, embroidery floss, buttons, beads, nature materials, photos, objects of sentimental value etc. to use and/or to share and any other tools or materials you would like to use.

This workshop is part of our Creative Community offerings!
These are open to mental health clinicians, educators, coaches, community leaders, healthcare workers, artists and more! Creative Community offerings strive to bring information, techniques, and continued learning for your own personal enrichment and/or guidance on how to bring the expressive arts into your professional spaces.

Please note this workshop does not offer continuing education credits.

Northwest Creative & Expressive Arts Institute Cancellation & Refund Policy