This morning I wrote the following in an email: “The words that keep me going were written by Faith Gillespie in the book “Women and Craft” (1987, Virago): “Our turning to craftwork is a refusal. We may not all see ourselves this way, but we are working from a position of dissent. And that is a political position.”
The term craftivism was actually started by the Church of Craft, as they had craftivist workshops. After reading about what they were doing, I looked craftivism up online, and there were 2 links to it, and nothing about the idea behind it. So I decided that there needed to be more of a resource about how craft and activism are collected.”
What (I thought) I didn’t include was how I also come at crafts and activism through an ethnographic lens- by documenting my own process and ideas. Craftivism is more to me than just an action, it’s a way of choosing to live. It’s about crafting not only items for the common good, but also ideas.
It’s bizarre having an “-ism.com” because the notion of craftivism isn’t mine. And even more bizarre because so very often it is various “-isms” that cause so much strife and argument. After writing this email, I decided to go back and look at what I had written in a very early interview two years ago. Ridiculously, it rendered the email I had sent not 12 hours ago incorrect, making me again realize how life has a way of making you forget the particulars:
“I first heard the term at our weekly Tuesday craft nights. I was talking about the relationship between craft and activism and my friend Buzz said, “the end result would be craftivism.” It sounded good, so it stuck! Later on I looked up the term on the internet and discovered that the Church of Craft does some craftivism projects, too. At heart I’m an activist, just not the poster-waving, screaming kind of activist. This winter I knitted a lot of scarves for the homeless and realized I was taking great care to make them perfect, because after all, someone besides me or my friends was going to be wearing my creations. There was a point when I fantasized about making scarves for every homeless person worldwide. Although I knew that wasn’t actually possible, I realized that everytime you create something with your own hands and give it away, you’re being an activist, whether it’s warming the homeless or fighting consumerism. By making something you are standing up in the face of this overly materialistic society, it may not be as obvious as waving a banner, but it’s still subversive in its own right.”
That’s what I wrote just when I had started this site. I was also asked what I planned to do here in this very space, to which my answer was:
“The main idea behind craftivism.com is that it would serve as an information site for people interested in combining their craft with their activism. Ideally I’d like to have interviews with people behind various projects that I believe are already craftivist, as well as pictures of different craftivism-related things people see out there in the world around them. Building a community around craftivism is crucial to me because it’s through other people’s voices and opinions that great ideas are born. By being able to post a picture or a link or an essay you might be able to turn a lightbulb on in someone’s head, your finished project could be a jumping off point for someone else. I like the idea of people becoming inspired by one another.”
What I said then still rings true today. Because it’s not a word or concept of my own making, it’s one that is free to be used and run with. What I would like to do more (and see more of) is collaboration. Because all too often, so many of us are out doing our various projects solo when sometimes they could be even stronger when worked on with others. Imagine what goodness we could create if we invited each other more into our lives and thought less about egos and genres and elitism and if it’s craft or if it’s art.
Imagine what could happen when you start coloring outside the respective lines and allowing yourself the freedom that is so often restricted by little but your own memory and vocabulary. Because after all, sometimes things get skewed as time goes on.
know what, on a pragmatic level you rock….but no….. really. i’m always inspired by coming by your cyber space.
happy pashminena,,,,,,,,,did i spell that righ?,……no…..happy wool party instead.
I wish you could have been at the panel discussion last night in Chicago. Craftivism, and you and your blog came up in the discussion. If it were not for the internet i would still be a solitary activist crafter, and perhaps not have had the opportunity to share in this idea of crafting as an activist activity. it was great to hear Cinnamon Cooper talk about the internet craftivist community.
The panelists had different notions on how crafting can be activist, and i wish the discussion had gone on longer, because by the end of the second hour we were only just getting into how to define activism. I again think that some in the audience understood activism to be soley reactionary, only in poitical protest. If that is how activism is defined, then crafting does not seem very activist, although even under those terms, choosing to make something versus buying it can still be seen as a subversive act.
Anyway, i would have loved to have heard your input. i will try to put more of my thoughts on last nights discussion into words on my blog soon.
I have used the word “craftivism” in the last two of my lectures that I have given. I plan on using it a lot more. I have a paper that I am presenting at the college art association in boston and you can best it will be talked about in there as well.
“Imagine what goodness we could create if we invited each other more into our lives and thought less about egos and genres and elitism and if it’s craft or if it’s art.”
yes yes yes.
I seem to be coming to your site weekly, at least, in a desperate attempt for inspiration and connection w/ like minded souls, I use your links all the time and am so grateful something like this exists! I’ m from Oklahoma so finding progressive thinking is sometimes like finding a dollar under the couch cushion. Thank you !