By Mia Prausnitz-Weinbaum, OA Admissions Counselor and Semester 46 Alum
Hi, I’m Mia, but some people on the internet know me as @mia.is.crafty. I was an OA student in 2018, Semester 46. Now, I’m back on Hart Road as the OA Admissions Counselor. During my first few weeks back, I’ve been reflecting on the ways OA has been a throughline of my past seven years, and I’ve found that I can break down its impacts on my life by looking at each of the four cornerstones: Intellect, Environment, Community, and today’s focus, Craft.
As I write this, I am wearing my favorite sweater I knit myself a few years back. In my bedroom lie the star patch quilt on my bed, the colorful pom poms lining the door, the four stained glass pieces hanging in the windows, the hand-bound journal and pine-needle basket on my nightstand, the fiddle on my dresser, and of course the stash of craft supplies filling a large, clear bin tucked in the corner. My love for making crafts is a guiding light in my life and is evident by what I surround myself with and how I spend my time. My semester at OA helped me see how important craft is to me and how it can interact strongly with another cornerstone: community.
In the first week of classes, everyone had to pick which craft they wanted to focus on for the next four months. I chose music, since I played violin in the school orchestra back home. To my surprise and delight, music class was much more freeform than I was used to. I picked up new instruments including guitar, banjo, and mandolin, and tweaked my violin playing to match the fiddle style of Appalachian tunes. The six of us in the class experimented with (often out of tune) melodies, always complimented by our laughter.
Halfway through my semester, one of my cabinmates taught everyone how to knit. The first hat I made, with a lilac acrylic yarn, took me a month, and came out big enough for two people to fit their heads inside. But I tried again and made my dad an only slightly too big birthday hat. I picked up wood carving and made my friend Caroline a personalized spoon. For Giving Day, I spent hours hammering grommets and learning macrame in order to gift my semester-mate a homemade hammock. The sense of pride and love I feel through the giving of crafts to friends is one of my favorite feelings in the world.
After OA, I found more ways to build community through craft. My lonely freshman year of college during COVID, starting a knitting circle was one of the only things that helped me feel seen. A few years later I joined a group called Old-Time String Band and learned the absolute joy that is fiddling with friends while people square dance to your music. I am forever grateful to have learned how meaningful craft can be at OA and cannot wait to do crafts with more OA students soon!
