Description
Celebrate the diverse work of people of color in the craft community and explore the personal, political, and creative potential of textile arts and crafts.
In early 2019, the craft community experienced a reckoning when crafters of color began sharing personal stories about exclusion and racial injustice in their field, pointing out the inequity and lack of visible diversity within the crafting world. Author Jen Hewett, who is one of a few prominent women of color in the fiber crafts community, now brings together this book as a direct response to the need to highlight the diverse voices of artists working in fiber arts and crafts.
Weaving together interviews, first-person essays, and artist profiles, This Long Thread explores the work and contributions of people of color across the fiber arts and crafts community, representing a wide spectrum of race, age, region, cultural identity, education, and economic class. These conversations explore techniques and materials, belonging, identity, pride of place, cultural misappropriation, privilege, the value (or undervaluing) of craft, community support structures, recognition or exclusion, intergenerational dialogue, and much more.
Be inspired by the work and stories of innovative people of color who are making exceptional contributions to the world of craft. The diverse range of textile artists and craftspeople featured include knitters, quilters, sewers, weavers, and more who are making inspiring and innovative work, yet who are often overlooked by mainstream media.
About the Author
Jen Hewett is a printmaker, surface designer, textile artist, and teacher. A lifelong Californian, she combines her love of loud prints and saturated colors with the textures and light of the landscapes she grew up with to create printed textiles that are both highly tactile and visually layered. Her hand-printed textile collages have been exhibited at Rare Device in San Francisco, and Artstream Gallery in New Hampshire, and her work has been featured in print (Anthology Magazine, Uppercase, and Taproot) as well as online (Design*Sponge, Today is Going to Be Awesome) and in a number of books. When not creating in her tiny (54 square feet!) San Francisco studio or teaching her popular block printing on fabric classes, she can be found cycling around San Francisco on her pink bike, chatting with her neighbors at the local wine bar, walking her tiny rescue dog Gus, gossiping with friends, redecorating her apartment, or noodling on her couch.