Community Spotlight: Nami Yamaguchi

Nami Yamaguchi is a fiber arts instructor who has been teaching youth at the Eliot School for the past four years. Now she is teaching adults too, but she still loves working with young artists most of all. 

We sat down with Nami for this month’s Community Spotlight to discuss how she shares her love of fiber arts with young creators through our Youth Vacation Programs and adults through her introductory fiber classes. 

Learn more about our upcoming April Vacation Week Program and our classic Summer Program for Children, as well as the adult fiber arts classes Nami is teaching in the near future.

Transcript

I'm Nami, Nami Yamaguchi. I teach fiber and sewing at the Eliot. I mainly teach youth, like during the Summer Program [for Children], or in afterschool classes. That's where I'm primarily interested, but I also teach adults embroidery, felting, and other sewing things. 

Any classes coming up you want to plug?  

Yes, actually. I have another Intro to Embroidery class in the summer, like early May to June. I'm really excited for that. You get to learn a lot of new stitches, do some watercolor with your embroidery, which I think is fun––a little mixed media. And then I also have an Intro to Wet & Needle Felting class coming up. 

What's your favorite artistic medium? 

Well, anything fiber. I'm not really a traditional sewer, but I like incorporating sewing into soft 3D sculpture a lot and then adding onto it with whatever I can [using] fiber methods like embroidery or natural dye. Making my own pigments is really fun. 

What initially drew you to the Eliot School? 

I was either a junior or senior in college at Mass Art, and I was getting into teaching, TAing for classes. So, I heard about Eliot from friends of the family. My dad actually used to teach art here when he went to the Museum School in the 80s. 

What has kept you involved with the Eliot School? 

It's definitely the community in terms of the kids and the staff. I feel very supported by everyone who works here. There are a lot of people who always come back, and that's one of my favorite things to see. Like one of the kids in the class I’m doing this week was in one of the first groups I ever taught when she was six, and now she's ten. And it's cool seeing someone grow so much and then also be able to help their peers in that way. I kind of see the teaching bug go from person to person. 

What is it about the Youth Vacation Programs that really calls to you? 

You get all types of kids. Kids who’d rather be inside making art all the time, and then also kids who are like, ‘I like going crazy in the yard, but I also want to make something cool.’ And I feel like I was more like the ‘I wanna go crazy’ kids. So, it’s fun, bringing them into the art part a little bit.  

I also really like that we have outside rec time to bond outside the classroom, [where] you get to play games or run around. I'll walk around JP, and kids will recognize me, and there's another community aspect outside of just, ‘Oh, she told me something which taught me how to sew,’ which is awesome. But also, we feel like we really know each other. And I think that's pretty cool.