Can Craft Camp Heal Your Soul?
Let’s start with science. Daisy Fancourt, a Professor of Psychobiology and Epidemiology at University College London (UCL), has spent the last decade investigating connections between cultural engagement and long-term health. Her research shows that people who engage with culture regularly (like going to a museum or the theater) are biologically about two years younger than those who never engage (English Longitudinal Study of Ageing).* A 2024 study out of Anglia Ruskin University found that among 7,182 adults in England, crafting predicted a sense that life is worthwhile more strongly than having a job did.**
Sam Fields could have told you that. The data points to what the Boston-based fiber artist, professor, and community organizer sees in her workshops, classes, and her own artistic practice. As she told me when I interviewed her in 2024: “I make slowly - with/through craft. Making slowly is a personal act of resistance against the fast-paced, multi-tasking, product-driven world in which I find myself.”
Slowing down, focusing, calming the body and the brain, are all benefits of hand-making and craft practice. Fields founded her nonprofit space, The Cloth Collaborative, to teach people the skills behind fiber arts: weaving, knitting, dyeing, sewing, working on the loom. In doing so, she has built a community of craft enthusiasts and introduced the wide-ranging — potentially life-extending — benefits of craft.
Fields teaching a dyeing workshop. Photo by Emily Tebbetts.
“... art has the potential to be a transformative agent in the world both on a personal and cultural level.”
This month, the Cloth Collaborative holds its annual Gather and Ground Craft Camp from September 18 - 20 at Ponkapoag Camp in the Blue Hills nature preserve.
Fields will lead craft workshops on natural dyeing, drop spindle spinning, tapestry weaving, cyanotype technique, and drawing.
She welcomes all ages and experience levels — in fact the intergenerational nature of the camp is one of the things her campers appreciate about the experience.
“Having craft artists of all ages and backgrounds around the campfire and dye pot was one of best parts of the weekend.”
Spinning workshop. Photo by Sam Fields.
The small group size means everyone gets personal attention from the experts. From Friday evening through Sunday night, Fields brings the group of 8—10 campers together for what she calls a “cozy, creative, and restorative weekend.” Craft technique is the focus, community and calm are the benefits. The outdoor setting lends itself to unplugging from technology and turning on different parts of the brain. This restorative direction is deepened by other activities on offer including hiking, yoga, swimming, and “grounding-in-nature goodness.”
Drop spindle. Photo by Sam Fields.
“The best part of craft camp was the community: mornings spent knitting together around the fire, starry nights telling tales, workshops with people who want to learn and experiment together. Time away from the chaos of every day life is already a blessing, but finding so much care in the leaders and the participants truly felt like the community craft curates.”
While participants bring their own sleeping bags — Fields says lodging is “in rustic cabins with wood stoves, no electricity, no running water, just the essentials and the trees” — all art supplies are provided.
Photo by Emily Tebbetts.
Where: Ponkapoag Camp
When: September 18 - 20, 2026.
Weekend Prices: $425.00 for a shared cabin, $525.00 for a single cabin.
Saturday pass $275.
Registration is open through September 15.
Cyanotype in the making. Photo by Sam Fields.
Cyanotype finished. Photo by Sam Fields.
The evidence keeps stacking up: art is good for your health. Craft camp might be just the thing to heal your soul.
Photo by Sam Fields.
“Being at Ponkapoag, gathering around the waterfront and campfires with like-minded souls, was a personal, professional and creative reset. ”
*Fancourt, D., Finn, S., Mak, H.W., Steptoe, A. and Bloomberg, M. (2026), Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, doi:10.1111/nyas.70232. (Daisy Fancourt has published over 300 peer-reviewed papers, 3 books, and two dozen book chapters and given over 70 keynotes around the world. She is author of the Sunday Times bestselling book Art Cure, which was short-listed for the international Women's Prize for non-fiction.)
**Keyes H, Gradidge S, Forwood SE, Gibson N, Harvey A, Kis E, Mutsatsa K, Ownsworth R, Roeloffs S, Zawisza M. Creating arts and crafting positively predicts subjective wellbeing. Front Public Health. 2024 Aug 16;12:1417997. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1417997. PMID: 39220449; PMCID: PMC11361946.
