March 2026:
Flags of Hope
Is hope something we feel or something we create?
This month, we're making prayer buntings — colorful fabric and paper flags strung with messages about what matters most. We'll cut, write, stitch, and string together declarations that help us find ourselves and each other through the noise drawing inspiration from Tibetan prayer flags, Buddhist peace walks, suffragette banners and more.
In a world that pulls us toward fear and fracture, we’re curious happens when we anchor ourselves in what we stand FOR (not just what we stand AGAINST). Come join us as we explore hope as a practice not just a feeling!
When We’re Gathering
Date: Sunday, March 29, 2026
Time: 2:00-3:30pm EST/11:00-12:30pm PST
Duration: 90 minutes
Where: Online
(Zoom link sent at registration)
Cost: $20
Creative Lineage: Who’s Inspiring Us
Our project this month draws inspiration from:
Tibetan prayer flags - colorful cloth panels strung across mountain passes and rooftops, carrying sutras and blessings on the wind outward into the world.
Suffragette banners — handmade silk and cotton proclamations carried through city streets in the early 1900s. Women sewed their demands into fabric before they were allowed to speak them at the polls.
Buddhist peace walks — contemplative processions where participants carry flags, chant, and move through the world as a declaration of presence, rather than protest, standing for something, step by step.
Folk textile traditions — from Andean weavings to Japanese koinobori carp streamers to Appalachian quilts, cultures across the world have encoded values, prayers, and identity into fiber and thread.
These artists and traditions remind us that declarations don’t always require a microphone; sometimes they just need string and some place to hang.
Making is a Meditation
Making and conversation go hand in hand. As we cut and string together paper and fabric, we'll also…
Explore
What hope looks like when it's made, not just felt
The difference between standing against and standing for
What we'd put on a flag if we were flying our values out loud
Gently Unlearn
That hope is something that arrives, rather than something we make
That our values only count when they're visible at scale
The habit of defining ourselves only by what we oppose
Practice
Cutting, writing on, and stringing flags from scraps, paper, and what we already have
Naming what matters with specificity and courage
Declaring without demanding — and discovering the difference
What You’ll Need
The Usual Suspects: Keep these basics on hand for all Art & Alchemy sessions:
Scissors
Glue stick, white glue, and/or glue gun
Markers, colored pencils, pastels, or crayons
Paper (any kind works)
For This Session
Flag materials: fabric scraps, felt, paper bags, tissue paper, cardstock, old book pages — anything you can cut into flag shapes works beautifully
Writing tools: permanent markers, paint pens, or thick markers that show up on your material of choice
String or twine: ribbon, yarn, twine, thread, or even a shoelace — something to string your flags across
Hole punch or needle: to attach flags to your string
Optional: stamps, stencils, washi tape, pressed flowers, scraps of lace or ribbon for decorating your flags
What You’ll Receive: A Zoom link, detailed supply list and inspiration guide will be sent when you register, along with a downloadable guide to our favorite craft products.
Your Co-Hosts
Alice Chen has spent years studying how people use tradition, symbol, and story to navigate uncertain terrain. She holds the reflective space for our gatherings and asks the questions that slow us down long enough to hear our own answers. This month, she'll guide us through what it means to practice hope, not just feel it.
Megan Rossi creates with Chaparral Made, working with natural materials and the quiet power of handmade objects. She knows that making something by hand is its own kind of declaration — that presence matters, slowness is subversive, and what our hands create often carries what words can't. She'll show us how to make flags that are simple, striking, and entirely yours.
You’re inner creative is waiting for you and so are we!
Join Us
What is Art & Alchemy?
A monthly VIRTUAL gathering where we make things with our hands with what we’ve got in our homes while tending to what's happening in our hearts.
Each session weaves together a specific creative project with facilitated reflection on questions that project holds. We’re about creative practice as a way of staying grounded, reclaiming agency, and building community in a world that often feels fragmented and overwhelming.
No experience or artistic talent needed. Bring your curiosity, your craft supplies and a hunger for something real and fun in a virtual world.