Craftivism: Read About It

Craftivism is a worldwide movement that operates at the intersection where craft and activism meet. With interviews and profiles of craftivists who are changing the world with their art, and through examples that range from community embroidery projects (such as stitching in prisons, revolutionary ceramics, AIDS activism, yarn bombing and crafts that facilitate personal growth) Craftivism provides imaginative examples of how crafters can be creative and altruistic at the same time.

Resistance CraftsCraftivism can be your voice of resistance: Craftivism is a non-threatening form of activism that gives people a voice when they feel voiceless and power where they feel powerless. It is an international movement for our time and noted Craftivism expert Sayraphim Lothian has put together the first-ever tutorial book on craftivism. In Guerrilla Kindness : artist, scholar, activist, and YouTube art teacher Sayraphim Lothian gives you an introduction to the art of craftivism, and provides a brief history of creative resistance. This master craftivist shows you how to make and use various crafts for political and protest purposes including: * Embroidery

This nine chapter volume explores creativity in art teaching through contemporary craft. A variety of artists, educators and historians share with readers their wealth of practical resources and frameworks for utilizing craft media (fiber, ceramics, baskets, needlepoint, knitting, etc.) and craft approaches (grassroots projects, digital communities, craftivism, etc.) within contemporary K-12 art education, museum and community programming, and teaching artist residencies. Authors representing a variety of specialties in craft, art, and education examine the resurgence of the handmade and homemade in contemporary youth culture, digital implications of how we define and teach craft creatively, and the overlap of design, function, and beauty in artists' work. The anthology also describes the challenges and potentialities of working with craft in education settings, including the overarching craft of teaching practices. Each chapter provides a range of creative frameworks and practical models that educators can use comprehensively: from dynamic digital resources, to community groups, and lesson plans and activities in craft with art classes and special needs classes. The book serves to propose a working definition and rationale of the functions of craft in daily life, popular and youth culture, and larger social issues (including craft, D. I. Y., and activism/"craftivism").

Craftivism is a term coined by Betsy Greer, referring to the raising of social consciousness through the medium of craft. The Craftivist Collective is at the forefront of this movement. Their mini cross-stitched banners and tiny urban installations touch upon issues of environmentalism, corporate greed and gender equality in a warm and humorous way - quietly encouraging people to reflect upon these subjects in their own space and time. Through the process of crafting (usually in public places) the craftivists contemplate the issue that they are raising, and also introduce it to members of the public, who inevitably ask what they are doing. The final product is thoughtprovoking without feeling intrusive or overwhelming. Sarah Corbett set up the Craftivist Collective in 2009, and it now has a worldwide following. Craftivist followers in New York, Los Angeles and Berlin have taken inspiration from the website and photographed their work in prominent places. In this little volume, Sarah Corbett introduces some of the ideas behind craftivism alongside how-to instructions for a selection of craftivist projects and hints and tips for beginners. In the words of the Craftivist Collective, 'a spoonful of craft helps the activism go down'.

In America, there is a tradition of teens protesting injustice and bringing about change that the older generation just couldn't.Craftivism means using handmade art to provoke, to interrupt, to draw attention, to help others, and hopefully to bring change. Ever heard of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, which helped raise awareness of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s? That's craftivism. Remember the bright pink pussyhats from the Women's March in 2017? That's craftivism, too.In Crafting Change, author Jessica Vitkus interviews modern craftivists and scholars who study political crafting of the past. This full-color book includes their own words, historical context, over 100 photos of the artists and their work. The result is an engaging narrative that reads like a mix-tape of the craftivist greats. It's a perfect book for teens who want to find creative ways to change the world for the better, even including step- by-step instructions to get readers started on their own craftivist journey.

Contemporary artists such as Ghada Amer and Clare Twomey have gained international reputations for work that transforms ordinary craft media and processes into extraordinary conceptual art, from Amer's monumental stitched paintings to Twomey's large, ceramics-based installations. Despite the amount of attention that curators and gallery owners have paid to these and many other conceptual artists who incorporate craft into their work, few art critics or scholars have explored the historical or conceptual significance of craft in contemporary art. Extra/Ordinary takes up that task. Reflecting on what craft has come to mean in recent decades, artists, critics, curators, and scholars develop theories of craft in relation to art, chronicle how fine-art institutions understand and exhibit craft media, and offer accounts of activist crafting, or craftivism. Some contributors describe generational and institutional changes under way, while others signal new directions for scholarship, considering craft in relation to queer theory, masculinity, and science. Encompassing quilts, ceramics, letterpress books, wallpaper, and textiles, and moving from well-known museums to home workshops and political protests, Extra/Ordinary is an eclectic introduction to the "craft culture" referenced and celebrated by artists promoting new ways of thinking about the role of craft in contemporary art. Contributors. Elissa Auther, Anthea Black, Betty Bright, Nicole Burisch, Maria Elena Buszek, Jo Dahn, M. Anna Fariello, Betsy Greer, Andrew Jackson, Janis Jefferies, Louise Mazanti, Paula Owen, Karin E. Peterson, Lacey Jane Roberts, Kirsty Robertson, Dennis Stevens, Margaret Wertheim

A Library Journal Best Book of the Year Alcuin Society Book Design Award winner (1st place, reference books) Hoopla, by the co-author of the bestselling Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet & Knit Graffiti, showcases those who take the craft of embroidery where it's never gone before, in an astonishing full-colour display of embroidered art. Hoopla rebels against the quaint and familiar embroidery motifs of flowers and swashes, and focuses instead on innovative stitch artists who specialize on unusual, guerrilla-style patterns such as needlepoint nipple doilies and a ransom note pillow; it demonstrates that modern embroidery artists are as sharp as the needles with which they work. Hoopla includes twenty-eight innovative embroidery patterns and profiles of contemporary embroidery artists including Jenny Hart, author of Sublime Stitching; Rosa Martyn of the UK-based Craftivism Collective; Ray Materson, an ex-con who learned to stitch in prison; Sherry Lynn Wood of the Tattooed Baby Doll Project, which collaborated with female tattoo artists across the US; Penny Nickels and Johnny Murder, the self-described Bonnie and Clyde of Embroidery; and Alexandra Walters, a military wife who replicates military portraits and weapons in her stitching. Full-colour throughout and bursting with history, technique, and sass, Hoopla will teach readers how to stitch a mythical jackalope and mean and dainty knuckle-tattoo church gloves, as well as encourage them to create their own innovative embroidery projects. If you like anarchistic DIY craft and the idea of deviating from the rules, Hoopla will inspire you to wield a needle with flair!

Craft is a process-oriented practice that takes seriously the relationships between bodies--both human and nonhuman--and makes apparent how these relationships are mired in and informed by power structures. Making Matters introduces craft agency, a feminist vision of new materialist rhetorics that enables scholars to identify how power circulates and sometimes stagnates within assemblages of actors and provides tools to rectify that uneven distribution.   To recast new materialist rhetorics as inherently crafty, Leigh Gruwell historicizes and locates the concept of craft both within rhetorical history as well as in the disciplinary history of writing studies. Her investigation centers on three specific case studies: craftivism, the fibercraft website Ravelry, and the 2017 Women's March. These instances all highlight how a material, ecological understanding of rhetorical agency can enact political change.   Craft agency models how we humans might work with and alongside things--nonhuman, sometimes digital, sometimes material--to create more equitable relationships. Making Matters argues that craft is a useful starting point for addressing criticisms of new materialist rhetorics not only because doing so places rhetorical action as a product of complex relationships between a network of human and nonhuman actors, but also because it does so with an explicitly activist agenda that positions the body itself as a material interface.