Red Thread Studio: Slow Cloth, New Cloth, Art Cloth

The Odometer Rolls Over

I've had 10,000 page views on this blog since December. I realize that's peanuts to a lot of people in the big global Internet blogging world, but it sounds pretty good to me, especially since I've not yet made a custom banner, attached the blog to an easy URL, set up an RSS feed, a blogroll (which will be voluminous, and I have to figure out how to organize it properly) or any of that stuff. So I really want to thank everyone who has visited and especially everyone who has commented. I feel lucky to know you, and I do feel connected to a global community of extraordinarily creative and interesting people.

As far as I can tell, viewer #10,000 was someone googling for John Robshaw Textiles , a company I've written about.  I was just at that site the other day, wishing I could buy one his exquisite duvet covers and looking to see if they were hiring for any marketing/pr/global textile explorer positions. Sadly, they are not.

Meanwhile, I saw this week that the current issues of both Vogue Knitting and Vogue Patterns magazine have feature articles on sustainable and "green" materials and supplies. They're both good resource articles. Some of the hyperbole (i.e. bamboo, the perfect fiber) gives me a green headache and green fatigue -- weren't we all exhausted with Earth Day hype and ready to go smoke cigarettes and litter and boldly throw a glass jar in the regular trash by the time it was over this week? And tired of celebrities claiming that they've always been really green, for decades, and deeply concerned about the planet? Really? Anyway, it worries me that too many exaggerated claims will ultimately leave people disillusioned.

But most of the information in the VP and VK articles is very good, and I'm thrilled to see it in the knitting and sewing mainstream. I'm writing an article on organic and sustainable fabrics myself, for a new sewing magazine to be out this summer that I think will be very creative and inspiring.

I also received my review copy of Sustainable Fashion: Why Now?, a book of essays edited and conceived of by the brilliant Janet Hethorn, a professor at the University of Delaware (which offers a graduate certificate program in the business of sustainable fashion) and Connie Ulasewicz of San Francisco State University. This is intended as a textbook (with a big textbook price) but it looks very readable and very enlightening for anyone thinking about a clothing business or just a better understanding of clothing and textiles in our lives today. I will read and review.

Now, though, I'm going to go finish a skirt that's been on the worktable forever so I can move on. I have a long list of projects and need to complete some craft and make some art.

One more thing before I go -- I've been resisting watching The Last Lecture because, you know, it's become such a thing, and also I knew it would hit close to home -- my father was a scientist who died of cancer at 63, and we lived in Pittsburgh for a few years, though he didn't teach at Carnegie Mellon but at the University of Pittsburgh. This morning I read the transcript. It is, as everyone says, very poignant, sweet, funny and smart, and truly well worth viewing or reading. Share it with your kids and take the time to watch. I promise you will laugh and cry. Randy Pausch is still with us, and though his prognosis is still terminal, I hope he's here for a long time. Now go be well and follow your dreams.

Only Connect: Slow Cloth and Community

This is the second post in a series on 10 qualities of the Slow Cloth approach. This was a tough one; I've been trying to write this post all week, not sure if I'm saying too much about myself and whether what is so meaningful to me just sounds banal in this context. Maybe so, but let's give it a try, and see if my disjointed thoughts make any sense.

Let me start by saying I'm not much of a joiner. I've been outside the margins for pretty much my entire life; it's not what I wanted but that's how it turned out. My early life was randomly peripatetic, highly unstable and anything but normal; there were no consistent relatives, friends, or schools. I was the only girl in a family of boys, and therefore the lightning rod for my family's gender-related baggage and hostility; I was also separated from and accelerated out of my age group in school and scorned by my parents for wanting normal social activity. This didn't make me a very good candidate for a happy marriage and family, so I don't have children; much of the conversation among my friends in the last 20 years or so has been about things I can only observe, with both the sadness and freedom inherent in that. It's taken me most of my 50 years to even begin to tell the truth about my life and experiences, and to really begin to heal and allow myself some happiness.

The things I am good at and passionate about -- art, textile crafts, yoga, writing -- are most often solo activities, and whether that's a chicken or an egg, I don't know. I like to be invited to the party, and most of the time I'm really happy to be at the party once I get there, but because my nature is introverted, I need time alone or in very private company the next day or week to regenerate.

Too much information? This is all a roundabout way of saying that community is a concept that's been elusive for me. I am by no means an expert at it, and when I experience it, in ways other people take for granted, it can be revelatory. And not always comfortable. Yet I am a firm believer that community matters. In the world of Slow Cloth (which my keyboard wants to abbreviate to Sloth . . .that can't be good, can it?) we are all linked by some form of community, and for many of us, it's one of the great unexpected rewards and pleasures of making things with fiber.

Some of my very best experiences of community have been facilitated by common interest in textile art and craft. Like everything under the sun, this isn't new. Quilting bees are the best-known form of the special camaraderie that happens. Gen Y-ers didn't invent knitting gatherings. And today the internet and blog world has expanded infinitely our capacity to connect through a shared love or use of fiber. For many of us who work alone, this is a fantastic gift of community. Few of even the most introverted among us have the resources or endurance to be Georgia O'Keeffe alone in the desert; we have to find that happy medium between solitude and society.

I've refrained a little from referring to "those who stitch" as female, but mostly, we are. So when we gather, virtually or physically, both the way we connect with each other and the traditionally female activities that we do while connecting tend to be undervalued in society. A man might put "relationship management" on his resume as a valuable skill; it's what women do all the time. Creating community consciously, with intent and integrity is definitely valuable and life-enriching.

Formal or informal, communities always take work and there are always complications and challenges in the ways we relate. As the world gets smaller and the news gets more ominous, none of us will survive alone. There's a lot more to say about this, but that's enough for today. I don't have a conclusion except to say that I'm glad for the ways that textiles and cloth help me stay connected. The analogy of the thread that holds things together, often in a beautiful way, is a good one.

Photo of Gee's Bend quilting bee by Andre Natta. Some rights reserved under Creative Commons license.

Apropos of: Expressions of Culture

Right on time, the New York Times has a review of some very culturally expressive textiles at the New York Historical Society. The exhibition is "Woven Splendor from Timbuktu to Tibet," and the article is "All the Colors of the Rugs the Nomads Walked On." There are lots of interesting quotes about the makers of these textiles in a desert culture that relate to my previous post.

I especially love that journalist Glenn Collins talks about some of the objects being "seemingly so much more glorious than they need to be." In a sense he's right. Knee pads for camels could probably have been quite ordinary and gotten the job done. But isn't that the whole history of textile arts? We are driven to add color, texture, decoration, beauty and symbolism, and to express ourselves and our communities. We may not strictly need those things to survive a day in the desert, but we do have a need to create them where we can in our lives. Cultures that suppress creative expression don't appear to do very well in the long run.

To be clear, I'm not advocating that Slow Cloth means replicating these forms just as they were, but looking at them with open eyes and minds provides a lot of inspiration and appreciation.

Elsewhere, here's a fun blog for those of us who just plain love fabric and pattern: TrueUp.net.

Slow Cloth: The Quality of Expression

When I started this blog, I had a big general intention to make my lifelong passion for textile art, craft and design a more central focus in my life, and to connect with others doing all kinds of work with textiles and fiber. So far, so good. I also had several specific areas I wanted to explore. One of these was my somewhat fuzzy idea about Slow Cloth, as I called it -- an authentic approach and relationship to textile art, craft, fashion and design. I've made some headway here, and articulated ten qualities or characteristics of my Slow Cloth philosophy.  This post is the first in a series exploring those qualities in depth, starting with no. 10 -- expression -- as we work our way up to joy in the process, that magical experience that keeps us committed to art and craft. This is my way of finding meaning and connection in the things I make and do, identifying it as a lifelong pursuit, an adventurous, graceful, creative, healing, spiritual, artistic path.

Slow Cloth is Expressive of Individuals, Communities or Cultures.

Textiles have been with us for thousands of years, and in that time, cultures have developed their own vocabulary and style to express and communicate values and meaning. These systems can be incredibly rich and nuanced. In the height of the geisha era in Japan, it's said that anyone could "read" a kimono -- the pattern on the fabric, the colors, the way it was worn -- and glean an incredible amount of information. Everything meant something. The textile arts were a way of telling stories and communicating that was unique to the culture. Yet even those not fluent in the language could appreciate the sheer art, beauty and character of the objects and the ways they were worn and used.

The idea of individual expression through textiles or art is more recent, from a historical perspective, but gives us unlimited capacity for freedom, imagination and creativity. We no longer have to be anonymous, as so many artisans and craftspeople have been through the ages, using the language of the collective in their designs -- we can create our own languages and symbols.

The Slow Cloth approach doesn't put a high value on efficiency or making everything identical. The hand of the maker wants to be seen and be evident, whether the maker is an individual or a community or a culture, or all three.

In our time, cultures influence each other and are interwoven. We have the great luxury of being able to see and share textiles from all over the world, in an instant. I love the idea of honoring and using cultural traditions while interpreting them in contemporary ways that feel right for today, and that's what I see so many wonderful textile artists and designers doing. Art and craft are not static -- they are living energies that need new practitioners to keep them alive, new contributions to the DNA. There is value in preserving the knowledge and techniques that give us a foundation for the new.

For those of us who are modern nomads who have moved around a lot, who feel an affinity with many groups and yet don't identify too much with any one, that in itself is something to express. Some artists and designers ultimately want to "go home" and work with the communities where they began, like Natalie Chanin. Others travel far to learn and experience the crafts of lives very different from their own.

To think about: what is your work expressive of? What traditions do you work with or respond to, which communities, which cultural influences? What inspires you? How do you speak with cloth, color, stitching -- and what do you want to say?

Photo: © Tran Thi Hoa / World Bank

Arte Y Pico Award and Blog Love

The lovely Arlee at DesignJournal blog has selected me for an Arte Y Pico award for creativity, design, interesting material and contributing to the blogging community. This is just so nice -- thank you, Arlee. I appreciate it so much.

There are 5 rules attached to this award and they are :

1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his/her blog to be visited by everyone.

3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her/him the award itself.
4) The Award winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte Y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award (blogger in Uruguay).
5) To show these rules.

So now it's my turn to pass this award along to five other bloggers. You may know these already, but if not do visit.

1. Sara at The Fabric of Meditation. First of all, I'm in awe of anyone who can blog so well in two languages. Second, her work is always a wonderful surprise.
2. Harmony's The Journey is the Prize blog about organic fabrics and the world of sustainable textiles. Harmony is a highly creative fabric designer, great businessperson, and all-over nice person who walks her talk very gracefully.
3. Dijanne's Musings of a Textile Itinerant never, ever fails to inspire and move me. She'll probably get this award many times over. Dijanne truly works from the heart and makes you feel like a close friend, though she has many thousands of readers.
4. Deidre's Abstractions blog -- as noted here, I've been a fan of Deidre's paintings on quilted surfaces for a long time, and now her blog is a chance to learn more about her thinking and process.
5. Pilar's Deux Frontieres blog is a brilliant journal of culture, art, textiles, design and life in Paris. Ahhhh. In some of my favorite alternate universes I'm living in Paris or London or another great capital of culture and society, but not today, at least not in this dimension of reality -- so I'm thankful for the blogs that take me there.

In other blog news: As I've mentioned, I write posts for EcoSalon.com. EcoSalon has been picked up by the blog aggregator Alltop.com, so I've spent some time using Alltop. They have pages for the top blogs in many topics, including green news and products, fashion, design, art, books, and a new page for crafts where both In A Minute Ago and Spirit Cloth are featured.

Finally, I've added an abbreviated version of my 10 Qualities of Slow Cloth to the sidebar. As promised, I'll begin my series of posts expanding on this list next week.

Life at the Crossroads

Just give me many chances
I'll see you through it all
Just give me time to learn to crawl.
        -- Rickie Lee Jones, Stewart's Coat

The universe keeps delivering amazing messages to me -- articles, Web sites, artists. Some of them have to do with healing the past and others with creating a new future. My word for 2008 is magic, but much of the year 'til now hasn't felt very magical (though last month I did do a lot of pondering on the magic of antibiotics and thankgodI'mlivinginthe 21stcentury). Maybe, though, it's all about recognizing magic in all its disguises. Onward we go, in search of it.

On the Slow Cloth/Slow Craft front, one of my online discoveries is the work of Laura Morelli, an author and traveler who seeks out the finest artisan crafts and craftspersons around the world. Morelli has a blog and writes a column for National Geographic Traveler called, "The Genuine Article: In Search of Authentic Crafts." I found her via this wonderful column on saris and fabrics from Rajasthan in India, and I'm hooked. I think this woman has the coolest job in the world -- to travel and immerse herself in the world's craft and textile traditions and share them through books, articles and lectures (she has a Ph.D. in art history from Yale). I also love that she seems to share my penchant for cowboy boots and authentic clothing from the American West. 

(*photo of sari silk by Celeste33  -  Creative Commons noncommercial license)

On the Slow Fashion/sustainable textiles front, I came across Project Refashion, a blog by Claire James, "renegade fashion scholar," all about sustainable apparel, focusing in particular on clothing made from waste fabric or old garments. [EDITED to add: I'm not sure what's wrong with the ProjectRefashion.com link -- it was working on Saturday but seems to be down now. I'll keep checking and update when it's live again.] I admit that this is, for me, the least accessible niche in sustainable fashion. From a maker's standpoint, I'm not that interested in using old garments. I can see that it's an incredibly creative and challenging thing from a design standpoint, and it most definitely is environmentally friendly and admirable; I just haven't seen much, up until now, that I thought really had both aesthetic quality and skill.

A feature on refashioned designs and designers in the current issue of Yoga Journal caught my eye, though, with some well-done garments, and then I found Project Refashion. Claire James calls refashioning "do-it-yourself reconstructed clothing as a contemporary urban art form." I can get behind that; that puts refashioning in a context I can relate to, and James has a lot of interesting things to say on her blog.

Back to work. Whenever I'm near the end of a big project, the entropy around me starts to mushroom and my apartment looks like a tornado hit it. I've mostly kept up until this week, but now, I, the world's most reluctant housekeeper, can't wait to get this market study done so I can clean up.

Mesmerizing Maiwa Podcasts

I've mentioned Maiwa and the workshops and symposium that Maiwa hosts. This is slow and authentic textile Mecca. Now Maiwa has added a series of podcasts to the Web site, excerpted from previous workshops and lectures, that looks completely fascinating. Topics range from ancient mummies to Slow Cloth in India to shibori to a series on The Working Traveler. You can subscribe via iTunes or an RSS feed. This really looks like a tremendous resource and inspiration and after my Very Slow Modem gets busy downloading I'll be listening all day tomorrow while I write about the sustainable clothing consumer (yes, we're getting close to the end of this study, finally).

Word Theft (and Recovery)

* This post has been edited, since the situation's been rectified. In short, I stumbled across unattributed use of some of my work from this blog on a major site.

So, just a reminder -- all of my work is copyright-protected. I'm thrilled and grateful to be quoted as long as there is proper attribution, and if possible there should be a link back to the original post. I am very easy to contact if you have questions about this. My intellectual and creative property is my livelihood, and using it without attribution amounts to stealing from me, even if that's not the intention. I always assume that there is great honesty and trust in the textile, craft and sustainability community, and I believe that's true, but you know what they say -- you still have to tie up the horses.