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Essay

Sun Day: Wool

A Community Arts Celebration of Solar Power

The Project

For Sun Day, Third Act Upstate New York, the Wool and Water project, and friends held a community arts project – called Sun Day Wool – to visualize and celebrate the power of the sun. Over the summer, contributors were busy knitting, crocheting, quilting, sewing, felting, and weaving individual 10 inch circles, following suggested patterns, or using their own imagination. These circles combined into a large colorful wall-hanging prominently displayed at Sun Day events in order to inspire more citizen action towards the clean energy future.

The works came together into what some are calling:

the monumental collective assemblage to manifest and celebrate the sun’s power at the center of the global transition to clean, renewable energy

The Artists

Nearly 80 amazing fiber artists contributed more than 100 sun circles to the collaboration.  Most contributors are based in New York State, however, suns were received from seven different US states and one Canadian province!

Artist Gallery: see the gallery of images at the bottom of this post showcasing the individual works.

Building the Tapestry

Working with Michale Glennon, the Sun Day Wool tapestry was designed and assembled by an amazing team of Third Act creatives: Laurie Felber, Joan Grubin, Tracy Leavitt, Sylvia Bullett and Elaine Stalzer, working together in Laurie’s studio in Woodstock, New York.

tapestry
Top Left: early sketch by L. Felber; Top Center: testing the layout; Top Right: outdoor hang test; Middle & Bottom: Sun Day Wool tapestry on display at Watts and Wheel EV Expo and Sun Day Celebration at The Wild Center in Tupper Lake, NY on Sept 27, 2025.

The Relay

To move the suns from the project’s home in the Adirondacks to Albany over Sun Day weekend, we held a relay!  Stops included Paul Smith’s College, Saranac Lake, Keene, North Hudson and Saratoga Springs. Highlights reel 5 min:

Spark of an Idea

The idea for Sun Day Wool grew out of a conversation last winter in Lake Placid, NY between several Upstate Third Actors and Dr. Michale Glennon, a senior research scientist at the Adirondack Watershed Institute of Paul Smith’s College. Third Actors were interested in Michale’s research into how the changing climate impacts water quality in northern lakes and streams. Michale – a big fan of Bill McKibben – was interested in the actions Third Act elders are taking to help safeguard our climate and uplift democracy.

We all agreed it would be wonderful to collaborate in some way.

Along side her field and lab research, Michale is also an accomplished knitter and the creative educator behind Wool and Water, an ongoing project that blends fiber arts with scientific data to form visual representations of changing water quality. In line with the goals of Sun Day, Third Act Upstate NY was just starting to think back then about how we might harness the arts to engage more New Yorkers in supporting electrification and rapid advancement of solar energy generation and storage.

Thus Began a Fantastically Fun Partnership

As summer approached, Michale developed several designs encouraging fiber artists to create their own suns, earths or other circles to express the meaning of Sun Day. The response was tremendous!  See the gallery of images at the bottom of this post showcasing the works by individual artists.

Highlighting just one example, here is a crochet sun designed and contributed by an artist in the Hudson Valley of New York:

This example comes to us from a remarkably talented Third Actor in Illinois:

Visualizing a Solar Capacity Boom

New York State has experienced tremendous growth in solar energy generation and battery storage capacity over the past 10 years. We need to keep this progress going and growing!

Images in the gallery below show Michale Glennon’s shawl and scarf designs to be worn out and about on Sun Day. Both designs represent data from NYSERDA and the NY-Sun program on total installed solar capacity in New York State since 2010. NY-Sun is a public-private partnership working to ensure a coordinated, well-supported solar energy expansion plan in NY and a transition to a sustainable energy future.

Also in the gallery are images from a sun felting workshop held by friend of the project Glens Falls fiber artist Joy Muller-McCoola. This gathering in Chestertown on August 6 (see gallery below) was great fun and gave the project a big boost.

Sun Day Wool Exhibits

Gallery of Project Contributors

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