Weekend Review: REDress

 

REDress / Jaime Black-Morsette, ed.
Winnipeg, MB: Portage & Main Press, c2025.
160 p.

Today's book is a feature for National Indigenous People's Day, June 21. I read this from my library, and it was a powerful read. It looks at art and how artistic projects have been used to draw attention to issues in the Indigenous community in Canada, particularly the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women campaign. (MMIW)

The title refers both to actual redress of wrongs, and to the Red Dress project, the best known project to draw attention to MMIW. This project uses red dresses, hung from trees, clotheslines, and in public spaces, to represent lives lost in this ongoing tragedy. It's a project that was begun by artist Jaime Black-Morsette, the editor of this collection. It's been installed in a variety of museums as well, and it is haunting. This book gives a bit of the history and purpose of this activist art installation.

There are also essays on other activist art projects, like beaded moccasin vamps also meant to draw attention to missing women. There are a number of ways that clothing has been used symbolically in the works included in this anthology, alongside other essays and statements from Indigenous women, Elders, grassroots community activists, artists, academics, and family members affected by the scourge of MMIW. 

There are many clear photos and imagery to support the essays, and the book is very well produced. While the theme makes it a hard read at times, it's so important, and I felt it was a great look at this topic as well as 15 years of the Red Dress Project. Definitely worth searching out. 

Weekend Review: Let's Move the Needle

Let's Move the Needle / Shannon Downey
North Adams, MA: Storey, c2024.
254 p.

I bought this book recently, as it falls so much into my areas of interest -- craftivism in particular. It's written by a woman who is a stitcher (badasscrossstitch.com) and a long-time activist. It was very inspiring. 

Her area is cross-stitch and embroidery, so that's the examples she uses. But this book isn't just about the craft, it's really focused on the activism part. She encourages all artistic practices - fibre arts, visual arts, dance, music, etc, to get involved, using whatever your practice is in the service of activist ends. 

I really liked this book, it was practical, wide-ranging, and inspiring all in one. She goes over some ways that craft has been used in political settings in the past, then shares some contemporary projects, but the heart of the book is the introspection required to be effective. She has many interactive questions to go through so that you can narrow your focus down on the 1-3 main issues you want to be engaging with. It's an important element, becoming aware of what is important to you and why. And then how you'll pursue that in future. 

Once you have an idea of where you would like to focus, the rest of the book explains how to work with others - how to form groups, keep them running, use the logic model to plan outcomes (ie: know the WHY of any project), evaluate, and maybe even end a project. She incorporates instruction on tactics, planning documents and more, to make this easy for those new to organizing. 

She does mention in her opening that craftivism can sometimes be seen as 'gentle' and non-confrontational, but that's not where's she's at with it. Her craft is a tool to speak loudly about the social justice you want to see. 

With the useful tools, the logical layout, and the points illustrated with some her own hoop art, this is a great book. Very to the point, it has a goal and gives you the wherewithal to join in and, as she says, "Build Community and Make Change". Worthwhile for anyone interested in craftivism, community building and Moving the Needle! 

Sewing for a Cause

I haven't been making much in terms of wardrobe this month -- and that is because I've been very busy doing other kinds of sewing.

This month has brought me two great projects. The first is setting up a local Boomerang Bags group. Boomerang Bags is an organization based in Australia, with the aim of getting people to think about plastic use, textile waste and other issues of sustainability. Anyone can sign up to form a chapter, and they provide a great toolkit when you do sign up, so it's easy to start.

They focus on community created tote bags, made from only upcycled fabrics, that are then given out freely in the community. Many groups do charge a nominal fee or a donation, just to keep themselves going. Boomerang Bags can be found in local shops, libraries, or at craft or community fairs.

Our local Boomerang Bags group had our first informational meetup this month, and so I was busily sewing and cutting to get some samples made for people.

 I was able to cut 7 bags from 2 m. of leftover thrifted quilting fabric (though I'm a handle or two short so will have to cut those from other fabric!) I also used a couple of pillowcases, which are just about the right size on their own! I have two sheets in waiting, too -- you just have to make sure your fabric is sturdy enough for a tote. Curtains, tablecloths, sheets, quilting cotton -- even old clothes -- you can upcycle a lot of different things. Boomerang Bags provides a basic tote pattern, but you're welcome to use any pattern you like, as long as the bags are created by the community group (not pre-bought) and use upcycled fabric. I bought a few fabric labels to start, but our library MakerSpace is creating a stamp for me to use to start stamping our own labels!

It's basic sewing, but fun and it feels great to be forming some community connections this way. A sewing bee will happening in March so I'm going to be busy with these bags again for the next little while.

The next project that I've been spending a lot of time on is an ArtBuild for Amnesty International. I'm really enthused about Craftivism in general, and this seems to be a great fit. I've used some of these elements in our local Amnesty group before (making fabric bird postcards for Write for Rights days) but this is a bigger, coordinated approach.

There is a Day of Action on March 2 in honour of  Berta Cáceres, a Honduran water rights defender who was murdered in 2016. Our local group is making a banner that will be used on March 2 and then passed on to the Honduran groups to use as needed. My role was to get the image of Berta and our slogan prepared from the felt that we had ready. I used an image of Berta and traced it to make what looks like a paint-by-number pattern. Then I scanned it and printed it as a tiled poster (at about 375%) to make what is essentially a pdf pattern.

This resulted in a great image; close up it looks a bit odd but get just a little distance and you see Berta clearly. Next steps are to meet up with Amnesty members and put the banner together with lots of colour and messages. I'm really happy to be able to use my craft skills to help this project. It's a timely reminder that the earth and our environments are more important than money, and some people really do give all for those things.

After these projects are mostly done (at least the majority of my input is done) I'm planning to get back to the two sewing projects I've put aside. On to sewing up an Agnes dress (from Halla Patterns) and then cutting and sewing my floral Khaliah Ali tunic.

I'm so glad that sewing shows up in so many places :)

World Water Day!

Did you know that March 22 is World Water Day? It's a UN led initiative, and they have a great page of resources for you to explore on the theme of protecting the universal human right to clean water.

There are stories to read, posters to share, activities to explore, and more. Water is such an important right!

Beyond fair access to water, I'm also concerned about the health of our waterways. Our library co-hosted a talk on plastic pollution recently, and I discovered that the freshwater Great Lakes are just as contaminated as our oceans, though ocean pollution is much more widely discussed. This was depressing! But they also talked about things to do to reduce your plastic waste as individuals, alongside requesting governmental and corporate change, of course, which was much less depressing.

One of the art projects I'm currently working on is based on a water theme. Looking at the vast amount of plastic pollution in our oceans, I discovered that all species are affected, from marine vegetation all the way up to whales and dolphins. So I chose a handful of particularly at risk species and started a project.

I've started embroidering from the bottom up, starting with red coral. Plastics do a lot of damage: they can smother coral reefs and encourage the growth of damaging algae, limiting the growth of new coral and killing the old.

This is the first panel, to be followed by a Loggerhead turtle, and then a couple of more species, and will be hung as one long piece. It's slow work -- I take the blue filmy plastic bags that newspapers come in, iron them into fused sheets (6-8 layers between large sheets of blank newsprint or parchment paper, ironed evenly at about a rayon setting until they are the amount of fused that you like. Wait til it has cooled down to try to peel the paper off). Then I stitch through the plastic. It's actually quite easy but does take a bit of time, so I have no anticipated end date for this project!