This is a photograph of the final configuration of the objects Hannah uses to tell the story of Tapestry’s guiding principles. The presentation represents a faith-adjacent remix of the Godly Play storytelling tradition, a popular religious education practice inspired by Montessori techniques.
All posts in Presence
Voice Memo: Group Dynamics at All Tapestry Event
Kyle Matthew Oliver · Cookie Decorating Voice Memo On December 15, 2018, I attended my first All Tapestry event with a solid orientation toward inquiry. Afterward, I recorded a voice memo about a relational dynamic I noticed. I have edited the recording above for length, some verbal ticks and false starts, and de-identification. Annotated Transcript:…
Co-Created Artifact: Yesenia’s Story
Kyle Matthew Oliver · Becoming Tapestry: Yesenia’s Story A podcast-style digital story cut from Tapestry mentor Yesenia’s “exit interview” with co-directors Hannah and Sam, by permission of all participants. Yesenia is an alum of Team Z, and this artifact bears substantial similarity to the video-based story the team composed several months after her departure. In…
Meeting: Facilitator Training Lunch, Reflections on the Move
I met Hannah and Sam at a deli in Powell Gardens after a morning of hustling around. I thankfully remembered before I left the house that I would need to go to a local music store beforehand to buy an XLR cable to use with my new shotgun microphone, since today would be the first…
Team Z: First Time Hanging with Team on Outing
I heard Liz ask Zoe about how school was going, and she said her grades were some good and some bad (two A’s, two F’s). Liz then said, “Oooh, tell me about the A’s.” I ordered an iced coffee and came back to the table. I listened as the group chatted for a bit, then…
All Tapestry: Mini Golf with Team R
I arrived at the course on my bicycle mid-morning. I could see a group that looked like Hannah and company in a large tent structure. I walked around to one end and came in. Upon entering, I said hi to Deacon Derek, and then sat down and talked to Liam, Hannah’s husband. He asked about…
Mentors: Another Thank-You Dinner
I arrived early to this second, more regionally targeted mentor thank-you dinner, and passed the time reading in a café a couple doors down from the taqueria. It was the kind of place I think would have felt modestly upscale against the backdrop of the neighborhood’s past identity as a broadly targeted shopping district and…
Mentors: First Volunteer Training
Although I had already begun to understand my relationship to Tapestry as genuinely inquisitive, the January 2019 training for new Tapestry mentors was the first engagement in which I took proper field notes. This account and many subsequent accounts are drawn largely from those notes, from which I have removed identifying or seemingly extraneous details.…
All Tapestry: First Participation Framed as Inquiry
Although I would not yet apply for Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for my research for many months, and I wouldn’t start taking long-form field notes until my next engagement, I nevertheless think of my participation in this holiday party in late 2018 as the beginning of my formal ethnographic presence with Tapestry. This event…
All Tapestry: First Time Meeting Participants
I arrived 20–30 minutes after the start time Hannah had given me, possibly because Beaumont Square is near where I was living at the time and I was trying to squeeze too many things in before walking over. However, I think I was also operating on the assumption that as a matter of ethnographic presence,…