Red Thread Studio

Slow Cloth Group on Facebook

Jude and Glennis and I hatched a little Slow Cloth group on Facebook. Please join us if you're a member of that demon seed that I spend too much time on wonderful invention. We have a great community coming together, with designers, stitchers, artists, fiber and clothing entrepreneurs, teachers, dyers, knitters, activists, garment people, textile collectors--all kinds of people who share an interest in exploring, using, and appreciating textiles and fabric in a meaningful way. We're still figuring out what to do with our growing group; it's ripe with possibilities.

I think Slow Cloth is a good moniker (with a nod of appreciation to the Slow Food movement for inspiring the concept) but I get frustrated that "slow" sometimes has a connotation of dull, pokey, lacking energy, unexciting, and even uninteresting. That's not us! At least, not on most days. So come on in and join up.

Made Well

I noticed this sentence this morning in "Pop Culture in the Age of Obama," a New York Times piece by author Kurt Andersen , and though the article was not about the great Art vs. Craft or Slow Cloth vs. Craft 2.0/DIY debate, it could certainly apply:

Maybe we can once and for all stop defaulting to easy categorical boundaries between high and low, and discriminate instead between the well made and the shoddy.

I think I like this idea. Mr. Andersen is talking about trends in entertainment and the cultural ideas we consume, but this sentence has something to do with the ideas that keep coming up here of elegant design, artisanry, and the marriage of beauty and functionality, or quality and accessibility, that we so admire when we see it.

I'm still juggling a busy work schedule, along with everything else life is dishing out (never mind trying to experience a little summertime), but did discover a lovely Web site for dosa inc., a clothing company using vintage fabrics that I found through Fibercopia. It's a beautiful site, and it looks like the company is very Slow Cloth-minded, with connections to the sustainable food conversation and more. I'll add some photos if/when I get permission from them.

Interview with Sewing Diva Georgene, Part Two

Part 2 of my interview with Georgene of The Sewing Divas is posted here. A big thank you to Georgene for giving her valuable time and space to this interview. One thing I want to clarify -- Georgene quotes me as saying that I loathe some junior fashion producers for what I see as their institutionalized objectification of young women, while marketing themselves as sustainable fashion. The quote is correct, but I was referring specifically to one company, and if you e-mail me I'm happy to tell you which one.

We also talked about other things that were cut from the interview, such as sewing education in the schools. I know Georgene had far more material than she could use -- there's a lot to talk about in sewing and fashion today. And I have a lot of opinions! I really appreciate the time and space she gave me, and I hope it's of interest to some of her readers. And her blog is wonderful, so bookmark it and get to know Georgene and her blog partner Mary Beth.

Meanwhile, speaking of fashion, I'm coveting these Peruvian Connection dresses and thinking about how to create some version of them, since they're out of my price range:

 
That's it for now. It's been an exhausting week and it's not quite done yet.

Thank You, Sewing Diva Georgene (and the almost-200th-post)

Georgene of The Sewing Divas has posted part one of an interview she did with me on Slow Cloth and sustainable fashion. Amazingly, she edited my verbosity and published it while unpacking from a major move and coping with a computer meltdown. Thank you, Georgene, and thanks also to Sewing Diva Mary Beth, who referred Georgene to this blog and to me. Mary Beth also blogs at The Stitchery, and Georgene at MondoMode.

I'm calling this Post #199B, since technically it's #200 but I'm not quite ready for that festive moment yet. Still, in honor of Independence Day and the unofficial Red Thread Studio 200th post, and all my readers, commenters, lurkers and friends since the blog began, here's a big beautiful starburst firework for you. Hope your holiday has been awash in life, liberty and happiness.

Fireworks photo by K2D2vaca

Project 3/50 and Project 95

I've been meaning to note a couple of interesting local-economy initiatives. I think a lot of the "buy local" talk is oversimplified -- trade has been going on since humans began, and international trade is not new. But massive multinational corporations at the scale of Wal-Mart and Pepsi and many others takes us beyond trade to a frightening level of control and ownership, and that's why it's smart to return to an awareness of supporting local businesses.

I like the 3/50 Project, which asks participants to spend $50 each at 3 locally-owned brick-and-mortar businesses each month. If you can't spend $50, well, whatever you can; I think consciousness is the point. This came naturally last month; I supported my beloved auto care shop,woman-owned and locally-owned Hoshi Motors; my hair salon, owned by a very nice man named Paul; and a local store with a phenomenal inventory of ribbons, beads and some very fancy fabric. Not bad, considering that I have been doing very little shopping for quite some time now.

Then there's Project 95, subtitled Fabric Shoppers Unite. According to their totally unattributed statistic (really, it's so much more meaningful when we know where the numbers come from), 95 percent of fabric purchases are made at chain stores -- Joann's, Hancock, Michael's and Hobby Lobby, I presume, are the leaders.

In theory I support this 100 percent. In practice, the only local fabric store that remains within 25 miles of me seems to have an institutional policy of condescension and rudeness to customers that has simply exhausted my good intentions over the years. I rarely go there, and I rarely buy garment-sewing fabric anymore -- online buying is challenging. And when it comes to notions and patterns, no question, I go where the bargains are. For fabric, I would definitely spend money at the local store if it were a pleasant place to go. And sadly, my lovely local quilt shop closed a few months ago.

Beyond the nice round numbers and sound-bite missions, can these projects make a difference? Well, yes they can. Grassroots movements are incredibly powerful. As noted, though, they only work if there are alternatives to chain stores, and in the fabric world, we haven't really made those alternatives viable. I have a dear friend who created and owned one of the world's best fabric shops here back in the early 1990s; she worked hard at it but couldn't make a living. When she had her going-out-of-business sale, the vultures descended, of course. Today, more sophisticated in our understanding of marketing and trends, we might say she was undercapitalized, or her timing was off, or whatever --  but it was a big loss to the creative community here. And to me.

Where do you shop? I know many of my readers use unique ethnic textiles or repurposed fabrics, or are lucky to live near a great fabric shop. We are only as good as our tools and supplies, but we also do find ways to be resourceful.

Disturbing but not surprising: Rob Walker notes in his Murketing column that Americans average 20 square feet of retail space per person, versus European countries that top out at 3 per person.

SDA Conference: Speaker Highlights

Well, so much for posting updates from the road. Now I'm sitting in the airport, homeward bound.

This was my first Surface Design Association conference, though I've been a member for many years. It's been both helpful and challenging, giving me information, exposing me to some wonderful art (including, in addition to all the amazing textile work, a fantastic photography show at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) and connecting me to people whose names I've known for years but never met until now. It's also pushed me up against all my own internal issues about art and craft and textiles, where I fit in, the level of work and commitment that I've had or have not had, and where I'm going from here. Some highlights.

• Harmony Susalla was the opening keynote speaker, and she gave a fluent and entertaining talk about her own history as a textile designer and her path of creating the first viable all-organic print fabric company. I didn't know that Harmony had designed a fabric that is to this day the best-selling Wal-Mart bedding line. If the crowd of people who sought her out to talk more with her was an indication, organic cotton has a bright future yet -- and it couldn't have a more sincere and shining spokesperson.
• Gerhardt Knodel gave a rollicking, practiced speech on identifying your own neighborhood of concepts, motivations and connections through a treehouse metaphor. I'll write more on this. Opinions were divided on this talk, but I liked it. As I was looking online for more information about him for you, I came across Worn Through, a blog/journal that looks well worth exploring if you're interested in a scholarly approach to apparel and dress (probably due its own post in the near future). It's published and edited by Monika Sklar. 
• Victoria K. Rivers gave an awesome overview of her life (so far) as a textilian, a word I wish I'd invented. She's a global textile explorer of the first order, an artist, a professor, and a warm, generous spirit. While her accomplishments are dazzling, she's not even a little bit intimidating. I've written a few times about Victoria's work with mirrors, metal and beads and her book The Shining Cloth, and it was really a delight to finally hear her speak and get to talk with her for a moment. I'm always struggling with the current pressure to clear all clutter, when what I really want is an environment rich and dense with beautiful, satisfying and meaningful objects, so I liked that Victoria declared that it's okay to be accumulative; you don't have to live in a space of Zen emptiness.
• Jane Dunnewold's talk was inspiring in every way. She said: Stop taking workshops and get to work; keep working through times when inspiration seems out of reach; and take the time to do things well. Art or craft? Don't worry about it; call yourself a mixed-media artist and let the details of that be somebody else's problem to figure out -- just do your work. She wove beautiful poems through her talk, showed a visual feast of her work and process, and was so accessible yet clearly setting a high standard. I bought her book Finding Your Own Visual Language and I'll report on my experience with the exercises in the book. She also has a DVD on edging and finishing for textile pieces that's on my wish list. After meeting her it's even more clear why she's one of the most sought-after teacher/speaker/authors in the textile art world.

There you have a few speaker highlights. I'll talk more about the people, the textile art and some of the things that the conference stirred up for me later this week. Tomorrow my new job starts, so onward we go.

S-words: Sustainability, Slow Cloth, Slow Fashion

I haven't written much about the world of sustainable textiles and clothing lately, but here are a few interesting links:

• Anaka has a provocative post, Giving Crafts a Bad Name, on her Getting Down To It blog for BrassTacks Madras. Her caveats apply to everyone who makes handmade goods; quality still matters, and is too often left out of the craft equation these days. Scroll down to the April 30 entry (for some reason I'm not able to isolate a link for the post). Anaka works with artisans in India and is able to thoughtfully critique what many of us in the West romanticize about traditional textile techniques:

Most craftsmen will argue that handmade goods can never have the same perfection as a mill-made product. That is true, but there is a line (and it is not such a fine line) between the charming irregularities of a good-quality handmade product and a downright substandard job. Pressed further, the craftsmen will tell you that good quality (“the way our ancestors used to do it”) is no longer possible because it either costs too much or no one is willing to do that kind of painstaking work anymore.
With my understanding that good craftsmanship is possible (because I have seen good craftsmen produce outstanding work), it really gets my goat when traders or even some craftsmen prefer to blame the craft rather than take the effort required to improve their quality.

• Rajboori makes beautiful, colorful silk quilts and home textiles using silk that they say leaves the silkworms unharmed. I've frequently said that I'm more concerned about human rights and labor issues in silk manufacturing than about the silkworms, but let's assume, so our heads don't explode, that people making "peace silk" are committed to ethical human labor as well. Rajboori has an interesting blog here. While they're a little self-congratulatory -- okay, a lot -- they are making beautiful products that seem to be made with a Slow Cloth attitude: "The designs would be contemporary but the artisanship would be traditional." (The link came from Fibercopia.)

• I struggle with the S-word -- sustainability. It means nothing and everything. This helps: Charles L. Redman, director of the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, where President Obama recently gave the commencement address, offers these five elements of sustainability to the New York Times' dotearth blog: 

1. Awareness of the challenges facing us and the interconnectedness of the world and of our actions
2. Creativity to deliver innovative solutions in technology, business and social relations
3. Stewardship of limited and precious natural, human and cultural resources
4. Institutions that are flexible and effective because they continuously learn, adapt and provide leadership
5. Values that enhance equity, justice and inclusiveness

•  The beautiful Resurgence magazine has published "The Tyranny of Trends," an essay by Charty Durrant, former fashion editor of The Sunday Times, the Observer and British Vogue. This is a wonderful treatise on the economic, social and psychological costs of fast fashion, and the need for a true paradigm shift to a Slow Fashion model. I'm quoting one paragraph here but I really encourage you to read the whole thing:

Modern fashion is made from many seemingly incompatible ingredients, but the cornerstones are built-in obsolescence, fear of humiliation, and sexual attraction. Warmth, comfort and personal style have for the most part taken a back seat. As the ‘trend frenzy’ deepens, we can see that fashion is no longer about style and self-expression: it is primarily about judgement – self-judgement and judgement of others. A toxic media reporting how women ought to look, and celebrity obsession further enforce this strange new paradigm. Our self-image is distorted and it is now an indisputable fact that our collective psyche is in deep pain. 

(The link came from my beloved Alabama Chanin blog.

Housekeeping:
I realize this could have been four separate posts - this week I'm going to try to switch to shorter, more frequent posts to make it easier on everyone. Also, a few weeks ago I turned off the annoying Capcha function for comments, hoping to get more of my readers to reveal themselves. Now the toxic spam is showing up, and I'm not getting any more comments than usual, so I will give it another day or two and then likely will have to turn Capcha back on. Sorry, but that's how it goes. And please do comment!

Life continues to be really strange but interesting. I think things will settle down in the next few weeks; I'll be very busy but at least the path will be a little more defined. I'm looking forward to the Surface Design Association conference, from which I plan to blog later this month; please do let me know if you'll be there.

photo of golden silk fibers by woowoowoo. Some rights reserved.

Heirloom Design

Happy Easter -- here's to a season of renewal and rebirth. I don't have much to say this morning, but here are a couple of links I've had flagged for a few days.

There's a wonderful article in the Los Angeles Times about Easter hats and the "church crown" tradition in African-American communities. The hats are so luscious! I don't think I could pull them off, but they must be a lot of fun to wear. And to make - they are works of art.

Allison Arieff has a new post on her New York Times blog about sustainable design. Designing Through a Depression is very thought-provoking. Arieff rarely talks specifically about textiles, but the questions she asks about design are transferable to art and textile disciplines, especially questions about the role of beauty in design, and if it's an appropriate priority. Um . . . is there any answer but yes? Beauty doesn't have to limit function; the beautiful functional object is the essence of artisanry.

Arieff talks about "heirloom design," a new term being used to describe the things we often discuss on this blog under the slow cloth umbrella -- a sense of authenticity, quality and timelessness. (Done well, these things don't have to boring - they can also be modern, provocative and exciting.) When you make a purchase, ask if it's something you would hand down to your children. We can ask the same of textiles; as Suzy Menkes said, the beautifully crafted sari handed down through generations is an example a true luxury in cloth.

And I think the bright, lyrical, beautifully crafted church hats on display this morning around the country qualify as heirloom design, too. Beauty serving spirit.

We All Will Be Received

For reasons I cannot explain

There's some part of me

Wants to see Graceland

And I may be obliged to defend

Every love, every ending 

Or maybe there's no obligation now

I have reason to believe

We all will be received

In Graceland. 

paul simon, graceland

This song has been running through my head for two days now. The best part of this strange interlude here in Washington is walking through the city in the mornings and evenings to go to the office, headphones on, getting the whole visual city experience with my own soundtrack. When I get to work, it's hard to leave my rich sensory universe and return to the present reality of an office and a (not Macintosh) computer. 

And I like being between the worlds on that walk, where no difficult decision about moving is imminent. It's not so much that I don't want to leave Boulder under any circumstances; far from it. But I'm not sure at all that this scenario is the right one to move for. I'm still hoping for some compromise that will allow me to do the work from home for a while, and that may even be best for all concerned.

It's raining here today again; it rains so rarely in Colorado that it's usually a fine excuse for what I call an introvert's day, a day when there's no pressure to go out and be perky while engaging in athletic activity (something I usually ignore anyway). While you probably couldn't call retreat like that on every rainy or gray day here, I'm in need of an introvert's day, so I'm laying low. A good day for blogging.

We all will be received.  I've been working a lot with the idea of receiving - how hard it can be sometimes to simply be open to what's available to you, and let it in. And also to be received by others, for them to let me in, to trust me. How to let people know what you need, and that you need them, without being, ugh, needy. I never saw a moment of a model for that in my parents, two people as closed off emotionally as they could be, and as determined to shut down any expression of my own emotions. Some days it seems as if all of life is about healing what happened in the first ten years, and then making amends for all that you unconsciously did after that. 

My traveling companions

Are ghosts and empty sockets

But I've reason to believe 

We all will be received

In Graceland.

Back on topic . . .

Back on topic, Suzy Mendes, the fashion editor of the International Herald Tribune, wrote a column about the Sustainable Luxury Conference in New Delhi that echoes a Slow Cloth and Slow Fashion manifesto:

But suppose that luxury were separated from fashion, with its constant desire for change and built-in obsolescence? Then the essence of the luxurious would be a private joy in something that was crafted to last.

The sari is a fine example of the enduring power of a piece of cloth . . . at its most tranquil and beautiful, the sari is an object of desire that is nurtured and passed on to the next generation. It has an image that any luxury company would long for.

The spirit of the sari is not the only thing that India has to offer high fashion. How can powerful brands teach anything to a country that understands the luxuriant greenery of a Mogul garden or the delicate craft that goes into a hand-loomed shawl?

Two different strands are converging in fashion: a yearning for lasting value and an urge to know more about the way that fabrics are sourced and clothes are made. This is the sea change in a fashion world where the fate of the planet is becoming more of an issue than the latest foibles of  celebrities.

You don't have to subscribe to a lot of hyper "eco-chic" marketing to understand this. I think this sensibility bodes well for every artist and designer working with cloth, whether in the context of fashion or art or just making beautiful and interesting things. 

Craftsmanship, artisanship, is a source of joy and beauty and meaning; it can be a lifelong pursuit on its own merits, encompassing all the soul and authenticity we yearn for, without having to be the ugly stepchild to Fine Art or anything else that's mostly a construct of society, if we can only restrain our egos that want something different.  (photo, right: Russell Boyce/Reuters)

The designer Manish Arora with models during Wills Fashion Week in New Delhi. 

(J. Adam Huggins for the International Herald Tribune )

 

More African Design, Inspiration and Beauty

Thank you so much to everyone who commented so wonderfully on the last couple of posts (and bonus points to anyone old enough to recognize the Bee Gees song in yesterday's title). 

It seems I have new viewers who find this blog through the posts on African fabric and design. I don't know who you all are, but thank you for visiting! It's not too surprising, since beautiful African art and design is everywhere these days and people are looking for information and links. 

The African aesthetic can be both ancient and tribal, and bold and contemporary, and has inspired some extraordinary textile art, like that of Yvonne Morton. And of course, it fits perfectly in the cultural groove, given our new president's African roots and renewed appreciation for the gifts of African culture.

I went looking for something for a follow-up post, and got lost in the very bookmark-worthy Style Court blog, with many pages of posts on textiles and art, and great ideas about how to frame and use art. Here's her post on African style.  

SUNO is a new company using vintage African printed fabrics; designer Max Osterweis collected fabrics from Kenya over the course of a decade. "The prospect that Kenya's recent post-election turmoil might keep foreigners from visiting or investing in a country overflowing with natural resources, talent, and good will became the catalyst to actually do something with these collected fabrics," the site says. "Building a successful and visible company that employs local Kenyan talent, treats workers fairly, and showcases some of Kenya's artistry, could potentially effect positive and lasting social and economic change."

That sounds slow, sustainable and beautiful. This spring collection has 1,000 individually made  and numbered pieces, and the company employs sample- and patternmakers in New York as well as stitchers in Kenya. The fabrics are vintage kangas, printed cloth rectangles with a rich history and expressive language all their own, like so many traditional garments.