Polymer clay shapes bonds inside the Women’s Center

The Women’s Center has resumed its popular Wednesday Crafternoons craft sessions. 

This week introduced the use of polymer clay — a substance made of polymer polyvinyl chloride that isn’t actually— where Minnesota State students came in to create and sculpt clay-like objects. Once completed, the polymer clay creations were to be baked and returned to students as souvenirs. 

Senior Piage Norberg and sophomore Abby Degroot were head volunteers of this week’s crafternoons. Degroot said the idea is to let students bring out their individual creativity. 

“We try not to really stop people on what they can make. We give them the tools to make it, such as clay, and we tell them just kind of go wild, whatever they’d like to make,” she said, “And then you can really see people getting excited about it. We have some molds that they can shape things with or just really trying to make anything that their imagination can think of.” 

The center’s goal is to bring people together and, through the art of crafting, participants can have conversations between each other as a way to connect and spread the message of empowerment. Others use crafting as a way to take a break from their academic studies. 

“Conversations can lead off once different people start coming. I feel like crafts are one of those things that bring a lot of people together of any background because a lot of people enjoy doing them. So then you get to meet new people, see their side of the story and get to have really nice conversations too while you’re here,” DeGroot said. 

“I think it brings a lot of people that are just interested in making the craft and then they come back for the other craft week after week,” Norberg said. 

Both Norberg and DeGroot shared a few ideas on what crafts they would like to see or bring back again in the next few Crafternoons in the spring semester for students. 

“I personally love embroidery. I know quite a few people liked it because then you really just get to do whatever you want.” DeGroot said. 

Norberg revealed the possibility of having a teaching Crafternoon where a special guest would come in and teach the craft to MSU students. 

“We’ve done all the ones that we want to do. We just do or we modify a little bit so we are able to do it again like the perler beads. A lot of people liked that one,” Norberg said. “We’re thinking about maybe having someone teach a class on something. So that’d be nice to do like a painting class.”

Next week’s Crafternoon will be embroidery and will be from 1-2:30 pm in the Women’s Center CSU 218. For more Crafternoon updates and information, visit www.mnsu.edu/womenscenter or stop by the center. 

Write to Anahi Zuniga at anahi.zuniga@mnsu.edu

Header Photo: The Women’s Center holds the weekly event, “Crafternoons,” every Wednesday. This week’s craft involved polymer clay. (Nate Tilahun/The Reporter)