About this item
In 1974, women in a feminist consciousness-raising group in Eugene, Oregon, formed a mock organization called the Ladies Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society. Emblazoning its logo onto t-shirts, the group wryly envisioned female collective textile making as a practice that could upend conventions, threaten state structures, and wreak political havoc. Elaborating on this example as a prehistory to the more recent phenomenon of "craftivism" - the politics and social practices associated with handmaking - Fray explores textiles and their role at the forefront of debates about process, materiality, gender, and race in times of economic upheaval. Closely examining how amateurs and fine artists in the United States and Chile turned to sewing, braiding, knotting, and quilting amid the rise of global manufacturing, Julia Bryan-Wilson argues that textiles unravel the high/low divide and urges us to think flexibly about what the politics of textiles might be.
About the Author
Julia Bryan-Wilson is an art historian, critic, and curator. She was born in Amarillo, Texas in 1973 and educated at Swarthmore College (BA, English Literature) and UC Berkeley (PhD, History of Art) . She is the Doris and Clarence Malo Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at UC Berkeley and Adjunct Curator at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo.
