Museum showcases traditional Celtic culture with crafts

About 30 people came together at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures on Saturday to artistically explore Celtic culture.

It was the museum’s last Family Craft Day for this academic year.

A mixture of young children, their parents and IU students worked with cotton balls, egg cartons, paint, fabric and glue to create Celtic-inspired items such as sheep and tartan.

Curator of Education Sarah Hatcher said March seemed like the perfect month to plan this particular craft day because of St. David’s Day and the popular St. Patrick’s Day.

“American culture is actually heavily inspired by Celtic roots,” Hatcher said as she helped a young girl glue cotton balls onto a cardboard toilet paper roll. “For example, plaid, which we see everywhere, came from tartan.”

Tartan is a crisscrossed pattern typically found in wool.

Freshman Catherine Krege sat at the tartan table with a few of her friends. Though she was there to fulfill a requirement for an honors class that stressed community involvement, she said she was pleasantly surprised by how much she was enjoying herself.

“I’m actually having a blast,” Krege said. “Normally in university life, you don’t have the opportunity to do crafts. It’s a fun way to spend a Saturday.”

Though students were present, most attendees were young children. Sabrina Sullenberger, a professor in social work, brought her three children to the event after recently seeing how positive it was for them to learn about different cultures.

“We all went to an Indian dance festival together and for the next two weeks, they were dancing in the same way,” Sullenberger said. “We looked up some things about it online, and it ended up being a great way for all of us to learn about another culture.”

This event specifically hit home for Sullenberger.

Her daughter, Ireland, was named after the Irish roots in her family. She hoped the craft day would continue to expose her girls to other cultures, much like the dance
festival did.

Though this was the final Family Craft Day at Mathers, Hatcher said she hopes the turnout will be just as positive for the Lotus Blossoms World Bazaar on March 31.

The free, family-focused event takes place at Binford Elementary School and will also explore multiple cultures through arts and education.