
The Tempestry Project: Philadelphia Collection
2019
On long-term view at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, Philadelphia, PA
40 volunteer knitters and crocheters
​
​
The Tempestry Project is a global climate data visualization project through fiber arts, including knitting, crochet, and cross-stitching. A Tempestry is a wall hanging, or temperature tapestry, that represents the daily high temperature for a given year and location, with January at the bottom and December at the top – think of it like a bar graph. All Tempestries use the same yarn colors and temperature ranges, creating an immediately recognizable and globally comparable mosaic of shifting temperatures over time. The Tempestry Project was founded by Justin Connelly, Marissa Connelly, and Emily McNeil in Anacortes, WA.
​
​
During 2019, Catanese coordinated a collection of Tempestries that shows Philadelphia’s daily high temperatures every five years from 1875 to 2018. The collection, created by 40 volunteer knitters and crocheters, is on long-term display at the Schuylkill Center to educate about how climate change is impacting our region. An additional 7-piece collection was created to loan to organizations in Philadelphia and the region for events, festivals, exhibitions, or temporary display, to expand the reach of the project.
Along with pulling the data and distributing yarn kits, she organized monthly knitting circles for the participating 'crafivists' to work together on the project.
​
The Philadelphia collection received press coverage in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Grid Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, Temple University News, and more.











