I read an article today about the Heartworks Stitching Club, a community of craftswomen in Capetown, South Africa, that really struck a chord with me. The club was formed five years ago to empower local craftswomen, who today create pieced bears, pillows, hearts and tablecloths. What struck me was the distinct visual language these women have created, a language that is exuberant and childlike, with a masterful sense of composition.

The collaborative nature of handwork in textiles has led to so many similar developments of visual languages by groups of craftswomen. At the absolute opposite end of the spectrum in terms of style from the Heartworks Stitching Club is the work of Amish quiltmakers, which I recently had the pleasure of seeing at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco.

From a faith that embodies the principles of simplicity, humility, discipline, and community, this group of Amish women have created quilts which transform humble fabrics into complex expressions of color and abstract form.

What is it about quilting bees, stitching clubs, knitting circles, and weaving communities that emboldens and empowers women to develop a collaborative language with singular voices? Often lumped into the potentially demeaning term of “women’s handcrafts”, the truth is that textile arts clearly enable women to express themselves and join forces to create work which is meaningful, and greater than the sum of its individual parts.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 8:36 am and is filed under Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can also leave a response.