Kyle: We begin today's show with community building. Earlier this month, WeaveNWA announced recipients of its 2026 Weave Awards. The awards recognize people and groups building social trust and providing space for neighbors to gather. Twenty awardees each receive five thousand dollars to build on their previous work and incorporate new ideas. Among the 2026 awardees, Armando Garcia of Springdale, the founder of Queer Craft Corner. This week, Armando and two other essential members of the Queer Craft Corner Board came to the Carver Center for Public Radio to talk about how their organization launched and what they want to do next. With Armando, the founder was Helen Wilson, the donor engagement officer for Queer Craft Corner, and Julie Ray, creative director for the group. Armando Garcia says he moved to Northwest Arkansas from Orange County, California, a few years ago, and he says it required a lot of moving parts to get Queer Craft Corner launched.
"I think the first part was my own personal healing journey. That brought me to the question of how can I represent my community in the most authentic way I know how to. And also like realizing that I was an artist and a creative at heart, and finding that through the therapy and journey I went through. But also there was a friend of mine who started hi queer and way shout out to Devin. Um, she, um, sort of planted the seed by asking me to start a crafting group because she had just started a hiking group and she said you would be perfect for it. And at the time I was operating out of scarcity of who's going to show up? How am I going to fund this? Because, you know, I'm a transplant. So I didn't know. I didn't have many friends here at the time.
"And then the last piece I, you know, is the last three or four years our community has been under attack. Arkansas has passed was one of the states that passed the most anti-queer legislation. And our community has been living in fear, specifically the trans community. And so I wanted to bring some some healing to that to our community. And the way I knew how to do that is by being my authentic self, which is an artist and a creative. So I started this queer craft corner at the corner of Park Bench at Charlie Wilson Park in Springdale, Arkansas."
Kyle: What was the first one like?
"Oh, it's rock painting. It's I it's always near and dear to my heart. The rock painting. It was so simple. I just bought a bag of rocks at Lowe's, brought some markers from Amazon and it just took off from there. People were just loving the rock painting. It was so simple."
Kyle: I'm going to ask a question that will highlight that I'm not a creative artist. You bought rocks. I mean, there are there are a lot of rocks in Arkansas for free.
"I didn't know me yet at that time. Well, yes, at the time, you know, but also at the time it was it was I was a solo. It was just me, you know, started this, this, and it was, you know, managing a campaign on, um, Instagram and, you know, setting the dates and moving parts and packing the car and yeah, I bought rocks. And that's why we have a team now, and that's why we have a team like these two beautiful humans."
Kyle: Julie. Helen, tell me how you win and how you became involved.
"I actually got involved through Queer Hike in way. Um, I went on that I went on one hike and ended up meeting our vice president and she was like, you have to come. You have to come. This is amazing. And I went and fell in love with the group and have just been so excited to support us ever since. Um, and yeah, uh, I've, we've, we're just like two months into being a nonprofit, so we're just really on the ground floor, like just so much talking and working through, like, how do we move forward? And that's been so beautiful to be a part of with seven amazing humans. And we all work so well together."
Kyle: Julie, your involvement.
"I first saw the Instagram post for the rock painting. I had meant to go to it and then other things happened, but eventually I connected with Armando because I'm also a part of tag at NBA quality, which is the Transgender Action group, and we wanted to have Queer Craft Corner come out and share their joy of creation at a very somber event known as Trans Day of Remembrance. And so it just seemed like a perfect fit for that. And then after that, I just got involved with the group, and I'm there because it's so joyful and happy."
Kyle: And I think joy is a really great way to resist for people listening who haven't, who've been, I don't know, fortunate enough or whatever, enough to not have been part of a community that's been under siege by legislation or underserved or, you know, the drill might hear this and go, well, rock painting, how how does rock painting or a different craft of people together doing that? How does that really help you?
"I would say that by show in in Arkansas, we rely so heavily on our ally community because we live in a state that has legislation against us. Um, when allies show up and just create joy with us, it is so impactful and meaningful and holds a very high value in all of our hearts."
Kyle: Mhm. For sure.
"And I also think that, um, building community, human beings need fellowship with each other. And I think this is a good way to do that. And when you're creating art, it there's just something special about that. At the core of Craft Corner, it's about the inner child coming out to play and, um, the rock paintings, uh, every, every project that we pick, if it lights up our inner child, it's a yes, because everyone's inner child gets to come out to play.
"You know, I was raised in a home. My parents were undocumented farm workers, and so creativity wasn't fostered in my home, not because my parents didn't care, but because they were focused on survival. And so that's why I've made it my mission to be a maniac. I'm a maniac on a mission to foster creativity everywhere I go. And that's why that rock painting is just something that brings us together. But there's so much healing in that, you know, creating something together and coming together, expressing our joy. And we get to highlight it and showcase it to the world."
Kyle: So Queer Craft Corner received a weaving award grant. Tell me about applying for it and what it means to get this.
"Um, as the donor engagement officer, that was my first, um, grant to apply for."
Kyle: And how exciting to get the first grant you applied for. I think that's pretty rare.
"Um, we came together as a board, so I think it was six, five or six of us. Um, we made a video, um, just kind of like this talking about how much what we did and how it impacts our community and the way that we plan to use that going forward is, um, they have a lot of leadership skills and opportunities, uh, because we want to show up every month of the year and have at least one event, if not two every month, because that's part of, um, of just creating community is that sustainability. And so working with them to figure out like, what do we need to be sustainable? How do we pay for craft supplies? What craft supplies do we need? Like, just like, and how do we do event spaces and community partnerships and working with people who have done that before is so helpful. So it's like we, it's like more about the mentoring than about the funds, but we appreciate all of it.
"Yeah. Despite people telling me to, to keep our boards small, three people, no more than three. I didn't listen. I said seven people because you know, everyone on our on our on our board is so special. and they're so vibrant, and they really represent the community that we're serving. And I just, I couldn't, I couldn't say, I couldn't say no to, you know, having these beautiful people represent queer craft corner."
Kyle: So what's going to happen, as you mentioned in the infancy, two months in, what do you think's going to happen over the next two, four, six, twelve months?
"Well, we have big plans. We do think big. Think big. We're thinking big. You know, I never if you told me five years ago that I was going to be a founder of a nonprofit, I told you you were crazy. But that was a question that was asked at the Weave meeting just a couple of days ago. But I think our first step would be maybe some sort of mobile station, a van. We have a bus that we're working on, something where we can take this to underserved communities. Pop ups. You go home with your art and the tools to create and continue creating. And then, of course, our five year plan is to have a brick and mortar third space in Arkansas, the NWA specifically."
Kyle: Yeah. Mhm.
"One thing I was always impressed with about Armando is just his boldness. He just goes and does things like if it occurs to him, he'll go do it without. You know? Yeah, he'll do it with a plan, but he's just willing to stretch and grow."
Kyle: What do you think it is that allows you to to do that?
"I wasn't I wasn't always that way. You know, um one, one statement that supports me to this day that I learned through the healing journey I went on. And the leadership program that I took was, if you change the conversation in your head to propel you forward, you change your life. If you change your life, you change the world. The conversations I used to have in my head were it was self beat up, really bad stuff. If I wouldn't want my worst enemy to say things like that to themselves, um, I won't even repeat the stuff that I used to tell myself. But it was essentially. You're not worthy of love. You're worthless. All those things. And so the minute I changed that conversation. I am worthy of love, and I am enough. That's really what supports me. And that's why I'm able to show up in this space in the capacity that I am is one of the goals of Queer Craft Corner to let other people know that as well."
Kyle: Yeah, one hundred percent. They are seeing you are seen, you are loved. You are heard. Our queer community is so important to us. The trans community is so important to us.
"Um, yeah, it is very important to us. That's our mission. That's part of our mission. Yes."
Kyle: I think when we say joy and we're using like societal love, not romantic love, right?
"But like part of joy is feeling loved by your community. And I think like tying it back into like, why this is such a big deal for others to come out and support us. So like if an ally shows up at our event and says, like, I'm here to make art with you. Well, I feel loved by my community. Like that's an act of love and kindness. And that's so beautiful.
"Yeah. We, we also try to make sure that every, every, every person with different personalities feels comfortable. We have neurodivergent people on our board and we try to make sure that, um, you know, very vocal and let us know, hey, loud noises, things like that. Um, but also like, if you don't want to be in pictures, we make sure we respect that so that everyone, we hold space for everyone."
Kyle: Let me bring up a much more benign case of self-doubt, but one that someone might have when they're thinking about a queer craft corner event. Man, my art sucks. I don't want to. I don't want to go there.
"Well, I'm an art teacher. Um, some of the time, and I think everybody can create art, even if they don't think it's great, they're expressing themselves. And that's really at the heart of what art is, is expressing yourself. It does not have to look good to be fun."
Kyle: No.
"Well, that's also part of the DNA of what we create. It's it's Montessori, a form of creating art. So there's, it's not step by step. We really don't have a page for you to take step by step on how to create something. We have some samples, but every time we create something, everyone's project looks different, completely different. But that's the point of it. That's the beauty of it. You get some mediums and whatever you create, you create."
Kyle: Armando Garcia, Jolie Rae and Helen Wilson are board members of Queer Craft Corner. The group is one of the twenty recipients of a twenty twenty six Weave NWA Weave Award for working to build community. Their next gathering will be at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville on August fourteenth from five until eight that evening. For other events hosted by or more details about Queer Craft Corner, you can find the group on Instagram. Or you can go to their relatively new web page, qccnwa.org . Our conversation took place in the Anthony and Susan Hui News Studio earlier this week.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
