He’s trying to mend the ties that bind us.
A Brooklyn artist is taking to the street with a vintage sewing machine for a performance he hopes can help a society tearing itself apart on the eve of a particularly divisive Election Day.
As part of the his installation titled “The Mend,” Brandon Woolf, 41, has for the past month been stitching clothes outside the Brooklyn Public Library as a metaphor for repairing the holes in America.
“The social fabric seems pretty unraveled in the moment. In the face of its unraveling, what kind of collaborative repair might be possible if people come together?” Woolf told The Post last week.
“What if we tried to tackle some very small problems and try to fix those holes?”
Woolf made it crystal clear to all that he had no prior sewing experience and had only just begun using his trusty 1924 Singer sewing machine, lovingly dubbed Josephine.
“We live in a moment where people purport to have answers to things, so I was interested in starting from a place of not knowing. What if we come together and be really honest about the fact that we don’t know how to fix the thing? What emerges from that?” said Woolf, who is also a clinical associate professor of English at New York University.
Dozens of strangers have flocked to his cart each of the nine days throughout October Woolf made his free mending services available to all.
When asked for his favorite memory from “The Mend,” Woolf recalled a gentleman named Joel who had recently become blind in his left eye and was embarking on what he called a “Hero’s Journey.”
The pair spent two hours talking about Joel’s new lease on life while they toiled to make an eyepatch, an experience Woolf savored as “pretty amazing.”
He also recalled mending doll’s clothes for a crew of kids, as well as a tattered pillow for a stranger who left a stream of feathers down Eastern Parkway as he raced to bring it to Woolf’s cart.
By the time The Post visited Wednesday, the self-professed amateur was something of an expert.
When presented with a flannel boasting a hole in the elbow, Woolf offered up two options: sew a crescent shape to reunite the ripped threads, or open up the seams and sew a patch.
After opting for the former, Woolf slipped the flannel through Josephine for just one pass, which was enough to make the gaping hole completely vanish.
“Where is your patch? It’s so good I don’t even see it!” Woolf said.
The performance artist chalked up his new skills to the countless neighbors who stopped at his cart amid their busy days to share their mending knowledge.
Alice Gill, 73, of Prospect Heights was one of half a dozen who visited within just one hour Wednesday, and quickly offered to bring Woolf extra material and to show him some new tricks on the vintage machine.
“I have so much to give to you from my house,” Gill said, before quickly agreeing to help Woolf piece together a dress or pair of pants from the mismatched pieces.
Those who stop by come for different reasons, Woolf reflected. Many see the installation as a free service, while others see it as a fun experience.
Like many others, Gail Greenberg of Prospect Heights and Therese Tripoli of Kingston were attracted to the vintage machine itself.
“Is this your grandmother’s? It’s beautiful,” Tripoli asked, before adding that it reminded her of her own family, all of whom were tailors.
“What’s been so exciting is people from all these different neighborhoods sort of converging and being interested in sharing different forms of knowledge,” Woolf said.
