About this item
Strange Material explores the relationship between handmade textiles and storytelling.Through text, the act of weaving a tale or dropping a thread takes on new meaning for those who previously have seen textiles - quilts, blankets, articles of clothing, and more - only as functional objects. This book showcases crafters who take storytelling off the page and into the mediums of batik, stitching, dyeing, fabric painting, knitting, crochet, and weaving, creating objects that bear their messages proudly, from personal memoir and cultural fables to pictorial histories and wearable fictions.Full-color throughout, the book includes chapters on various aspects of textile storytelling, from "Textiles of Protest, Politics, and Power" to "The Fabric of Remembrance"; it also includes specific projects, such as the well-known and profoundly moving Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, as well as poetry mittens, button blankets, and stitched travel diaries.
About the Author
Leanne Prain helps communities and people connect through creative ideas.She is the author of three books, Strange Material: Storytelling Through Textiles (2014) ; Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti (2009 & 2019) co-authored with Mandy Moore; and Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery (2014) , all published by Arsenal Pulp Press. She has also contributed to publications including Designer, Desktop, Works that Work, Applied Arts, CV Collective Magazine, Seamwork, and the anthology Craftivism.Leanne has been featured in major publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vogue Knitting, the BBC, Irish Public Radio, the Guardian UK, The National, and the Globe and Mail. She's delivered lectures, panel discussions and workshops across North America in places such as The Smithsonian, Powell's Books, the San Francisco Craft Museum, Textile Arts in Brooklyn, Type Books, McNally Robinson Winnipeg, and Emily Carr University of Art and Design.When she's not writing, Leanne serves at the BC Chapter President of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada, and as the co-artistic director of The Imprint, a literary collective that she founded with poet Laura Farina to explore participatory acts of writing in public spaces.Born in the Comox Valley, she currently lives in Vancouver, Canada, the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
