And.
Take it away, Rachel.
Good afternoon.
Or good morning to wherever you may be zooming in from.
I'm Rachel [unknown].
The programs manager, legacy and editorial.
For the American craft council.
Part of our editorial team.
And the coordinator behind the American craft forum series.
I'm so pleased to welcome you all to this American craft forums
program.
In association with our quarterly publication, American craft.Live captions provided by Rev.com. For 99% accurate post-meeting transcripts and captions, visit Rev.com.I'm speaking to you today from my home in apple valley, Minnesota.
And representing the offices of the American craft council inMinneapolis,which are both located on the traditional ancestral and contemporary
lands of the Dakota and Egypt way. People.This place curious, a complicated and layered history.And the thousands of years,
the Dakota have been in relationship and kinship with the land here.And in the several hundred years since European settlers colonized the
land that the state of Minnesota now occupies.
The United States land seizure was a project of destruction.
That denied the Dakota free and unhindered access to land that
fundamentally shapes their life and their identity and lives.
We pay tribute to the Dakota and a jig way and invite you to consider
the land on which you live.
And the confluence of legacies.
That bring you to stand where you are,
particularly through critical reflection and conversation with your
own communities.
Fostering conversation and community are at the heart of HCCs mission.
And American craft serves as one of the most vital contributions and
service to this mission and hopefully to the field of craft and
American culture.
As we enter a new year,
our world continues to change and we continue to do what we can to
meet this moment.
This year American craft reflects on when and where this publication
has been at its best rooted in the present moment,
shining a light on the diversity, resilience, beauty,
and impact of American craft and its makers.
In 2022, we look at craft fiddle, lens of four themes.
Wonder fashion, forge and gather.
The editorial team.
Has plans well underway for our spring and summer issues.
Fashion and forge.
And we're excited to announce our 2023 themes.
Inhabit vessel wild and collect.
We encourage pitches and submissions from our community,
and we'll have more information on the 2023 themes in the coming
weeks.
Please check our website,
underwriters guidelines and submissions for more information.
Before I dive into the program in my introduction,
I also just wanted to thank the ACC staff,
particularly our editor in chief, Karen Olson,
our amazing marketing team.
And our it guru Jason Samuel's.
The American craft council is a national nonprofit organization.
As such,
I would also like to give a big shout out to our donors and members
who make programs like this possible.
And a very special thank you to the Minnesota state arts board and
Wingate charitable foundation for their very generous support.
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This program will also be recorded and available for future viewing.
In the winter issue,
which is all about the wonder and curiosity and craft,
we were honored and excited to announce the recipients of our
inaugural lowest Moran award for craft writing.
Early last year, the American craft council and the craft community.
Last one of the greats.
Lois Moran was the longest serving editor of American craft magazine.
And for many ushered in a new era of contemporary craft,
writing that put the artist first.
And kept pace with what was being done in the realm of the,
of fine art.
And her honor,
ACC started this annual award for craft writing to recognize the work
of writers committed to moving the craft conversation forward.
Today we are thrilled to present three short presentations given by
the award recipients and a group conversation between the guests
jurors.
And recipients to explore the state of craft writing in this
contemporary moment.
And now I am so pleased to introduce and welcome.
Our three award guests, jurors, and program moderators.
Let Glenn Adamson, Indira, Allegra, and Rachel at her house.
Glen Adamson.
Uses he him pronouns is a curator writer and historian based in
New York.
He has previously been director of the museum of arts and design,
head of research at the VNA in the London.
And curator at the Chipstone foundation in Milwaukee.
Thanks Glenn.
Indira Alegra who uses they,
them pronouns explores Memorial as a genre and final part of the human
experience.
Deeply informed by the richful relational and performative aspects of
leading Alegra explores the.
Live captions provided by Rev.com. For 99% accurate post-meeting transcripts and captions, visit Rev.com.Something Louis Moran herself would have liked.She wasn't somebody to play favorites and she was always really
dedicated.Not necessarily to the forwarding of anyone on there.Lone voice, but rather than the promotion of.
Collective.Sensibility sort of field-wide endeavor of understanding andarticulating the value of craft.
So in recognizing three separate writers,we felt that we were being sort of true to her own vision.
And I'll have a little more to say about Lois in a little while,
but first I want to hand it over to Lena.
Her essay moving beyond acknowledgement really impressed us as jurors.
First and foremost,
I would say because of its research and level of commitment.
So as I'm sure we'll come across in her comments now.
Bellina took a very hard look at the metal smithing smithing field.
And thought about.
The inherited bias and systemic racism.
That's still evident in not just that field,
but craft in the arts more generally.
But rather than simply asserting that fact,
which unfortunately will come as no surprise.
She actually substantiated it through a really kind of lapidary focus
on particular examples and sort of clauses statistical analysis of
the situation.
So it's a really terrific piece of primary research that others can
build on.
Looking at either at metal spiffing or in other fields.
So I'm going to leave it there and welcome Belina to the virtual
podium.
Elena, could we have you please turn your camera on.
I'm working on it.
Good day, everyone.
Why are black women?
So loud.
If you have a thought it, someone has said it around you.
And it's not that it comes up a lot with me because I am a loud black
woman.
And the reason is, is that.
My voice has been muted.
For so long.
That I find I have to go that extra effort to make
myself hurt.
So I'd like to thank Adrian Dalton,
the editor at middle Smith magazine for allowing my voice to be heard
through their publication and also the American craft.
Magazine.
For letting my voice be heard through their community.
It really has been a privileged for me.
To participate in this program.
So when I wrote my article,
The survey. I did a lot of data.
Oriented research because I do come from a business background.
I want to substantiate my work with solid data.
And so the question I would ask first is.
The next question is what percentage of your population, you know,
your artists, your students.
Or minorities. And that response to that was usually 40 to 60%.
And then I would ask the question.
How many of those minority students are black
Americans or.
Black people that are descendants.
Of the transatlantic slave trade.
And the number.
One response was none.
Number two was why only one person actually had to.
And so I was so shocked by the results because I knew.
That there was a form of systemic racism out here,
but I did not realize.
You know how much it had affected.
The black artist and the metal Smith community.
So I think what the problem has been is that diversity
and defining diversity and racism has muddied the waters. And so.
It allows a lot of individuals to do what they call virtue.
Sit signaling.
They'll say, oh, look at me. I'm great. Because you know,
I have all different kinds of artists here.
But what we're seeing is,
and what the scholars are calling is an era of anti-blackness.
Where even know this diversity is pervasive.
You do not find black Americans as.
You know, as.
At part of this diversity group.
So I actually read an article by Eduardo Binya.
Nia Silva.
And he talks about how the stratification
of our country from a, to.
Two individuals two, three. So for example,
we were before the oppressed and the white privilege.
Now we're at a point where we are the white privilege,
the ordinary honorary whites, and then the collective black.
And so the collected black continue to be.
Discriminated against in a way that is common
has been common for centuries.
But you have the honorary whites and their admission into that group
is that they have to have a negative attitude about
the collective black.
And so in the honorary white school, you will see people like,
and it's also based on phenotypes.
So it's determined by your pigmentation.
So the honorary whites are individuals with fair skin.
And this has just.
Started a rupture.
Between people that have more in common.
Then they have not.
And so, excuse me.
I have code let's stop trying to struggle through this.
So as you look at this.
So as you look at this and how does affect it?
And then we are finding fewer and fewer black Americans.
In the industry.
The.
Number one reason.
That individual said they did not have black artists was number one.
That they did not have. They could not find Blackmores.
And number two is that there are not any black artists in the
industry.
And both of these are obviously a fallacy. There are plenty of Horace.
It is just that through systemic.
Anti-blackness we have sort of been pushed out.
Of the loop for success within the metal Smith community.
And so I would charge those that are in the honorary white
group.
And the group that are in the privilege, white group.
To align with the collective black.
And that's kind of one of the suggestions that Silva makes and so that
we can overcome.
This,
the stratification that continues to oppress the collective black.
Thank you.
Am I supposed to introduce someone else?
Thank you.
Alina.
I apologize.
I'm trying to go back to the run of show to see if it's Glen or Rachel
coming back on now.
No problem.
And it is Indira and that is my fault. I really apologize for that.
Indira, I will bring you on here.
Okay.
And take Molina off.
Thank you so much for your presentation and apologize for the echo.
Thank you.
Oh, we can do is what we can do.
All right.
Hello, everyone.
When he was Indira lake.
I'm an artist sending.
From to change any territory here in Oakland, California.
And it is my joy actually,
to introduce Pelli Pendegrass.
She is a writer.
Researcher and media artists living in San Francisco.
Around your teeth.
Eloni territory.
She writes about the social and environmental impacts of technology,
material, culture, and digital images for a range of publications.
Her recent work explores topics,
including the tension between domestic utility.
And global supply chains.
Robot performance and the aesthetics of smart objects.
Kelly is the co-founder of anti-static a research and communications
consultant.
That brings to clarity.
That brings clarity to complex issues around technology and the
environment.
You can find more of a writing at anti-static partners.com and at
candor score Pendegrass on Twitter.
One of the things that stood out
to me and my other jurors about the article
that she wrote cozy tech.
Was just how amazing the
writing was like the.
Way in which Kelly was writing was also sort of demonstrating
these larger ideas of the seductive ways in which
craft can be used.
So she offered a very valuable perspective on craft objects being used
commercially.
Introductive ways challenging.
The idea that craft objects are always operating from a position of
purity.
Or honesty.
So I thank you, Kelly.
I'm really looking forward to hearing your presentation.
And let's welcome Kelly.
Thank you so much, Indira.
I'm Kelly. And yet as a endearment tuned, I am across the bay.
I'm in bologna territory, San Francisco.
And I do have a few slides to show you. So.
I will let.
The tick expense, run that side.
For you.
I'm going to talk a little bit specifically about the piece that I
wrote and a bit about how I was kind of how I backed into craft rising
in this instance. So I have a background in art and film.
But my public writing these days is mostly about the,
kind of the social and political impacts of technology.
And specifically like the tech industry and the ways that new
technology is positioned and mythologized and media and advertising.
But a couple of years ago, I was doing some workforce secular fashion.
Non-profits.
Like learning a lot about textile production and reuse and really
looking closely at fiber.
Thinking about how fabric is woven, where it's made, who would affect.
And then during the first wave of the pandemic,
which now feels like a million years ago.
I got back into sewing.
The first time in a long time.
And so I'd also been learning a bit about gamut productions.
I really had fabric on my mind.
Which is kind of the backstory to this piece,
but then the thing that kind of kicked off my specific line of inquiry
ones.
This apple ad.
For as big new.
New over ear headphones.
Pipelines max, which will launch next year,
or do you want to move on to the next slide?
And here we go here. Some, some images from Apple's product page.
So I was really taken by the textural net that comes.
The ear cups, which you can see here. And it's obviously,
so the science and PIP hustle.
But also seemed kind of like a surprising material choice.
I think you often expect maybe like fine grain live.
Or something similar.
Really expensive.
The phone like this you've worked $550.
And then we look at the next slide.
You can kind of see another image from the product page.
Look at this we've here. I just was really.
So taken in, interested in the way that it was focusing.
So close up on this.
The weave of the fibers.
Kind of seemed to make a connection between the high fidelity of the
sound and this kind of technical precision of the wave.
With kind of putting you into this whole landscape of cloth.
Let's say you could imagine.
Digital signals kind of pigging back and forth over the fabric itself.
So this ad kind of got me thinking as in deer pointed out about the
ways that fabric is deployed by kit company,
and especially as they move into this new space with more audio
products.
Things like headphones and this ever kind of expanding array of smart
speakers and home devices.
And so I've noticed a bunch of.
I kind of had my eye off the tick fabrics and really noticed a bunch
of them.
In the last few years, things like smart home speakers,
whether it's so notice or Google home.
Kind of closed in this gray fabric looking.
A little bit like domestic rocks.
And then thinking about experiments also in smart textiles.
That you do.
The other project called project [unknown].
At.
Google. And Levi's a couple of years ago,
which was supposed to let you answer your phone by swiping some kind
of embedded.
Fibers on your sleeve. And so I've been really interested in what.
Fabric and craft means minutes kind of bought into the realm of tech
services.
So the next slide is this kind of image of Google home mini,
which is another device that really relies on fabric for a lot of
this.
And form in Google had really had this embrace of cozy fabrics for
their home device line recently.
Really.
The purpose will move, which was made in part by Ivy, Ross.
Google's VP of family design and she said,
In one piece of ad copy.
We sitting in front of flat, shiny things all the time.
And we wanted to make technology a little bit more human by putting
soft kids on everything.
So that's an Ivy Ross quote. And since her arrival,
At Google,
she kind of has really brought him this design and craft into the
approach.
They really seem to as like homeliness and tactility and often
integrates textiles into hardware in a ground way.
And she said specifically,
I wanted Google home mini to look like snow had fallen on a form.
So there's really like warm, comforting,
kind of like domestic Nordic sounding approach to fabric and fiber.
And so on the next slide, there's just a closeup.
Of this love and closeup of the fiber.
Which was used to kind of in case.
The smart speakers anyway.
Long story, but this got me thinking about the way that, that fabric.
And these craft techniques kind of provide a different kind of
organicness from other kinds of taking materials.
You know,
plastic and metal are often molded to take on these organic forms.
Become biomorphic.
Historically, you know,
Fabric has made.
More directly of organic materials. It's kind of Rowan,
not rather than mind.
And in fabric obviously comes into intimate contact with our bodies.
Clothing us and protecting us. And.
And so you can see this intention on that. The next slide.
Which is, you know,
this idea of bringing fabrics into technology in a way that encourages
people to feel cozy and safe and protected.
And so these pictures are from Google's installation at Milan design
week in 2018. Yes.
They had one which was kind of interesting in itself.
It, you can see this.
A virtual reality device on the left.
By this kind of like cozy, soft.
And then on the right is actually this woven panel that was put
together with shows, you know, some cell phones and some new,
some new speakers.
Headphones.
In this kind of like a domestic weaving.
Which was kind of presented as a wall hanging.
So in these cases kind of craft and fiber and fabric technology,
you really bought into kind of.
Kind of like Hooga modernism, I guess.
Anyway.
So the rest of my piece kind of spend some time thinking about the
ways that fabric and craft.
Brought to bring a sense of softness and Jami.
Unfamiliar technology.
And specifically surveillance technology like smart speakers.
And these home devices.
Given you this idea of kind of protectiveness and a home comforts.
Where you might often feel sick, otherwise feel surveilled,
but we're a little bit suspicious of the new technology.
And then one final image on the last live.
Simply site, which is another home security system.
He has an image that kind of highlights this.
This idea.
Surveillance and dominance.
And D to give her, so they had this, this ad campaign.
That was a big one who.
Which is this Nordic idea of conferencing in homeliness and the
winter.
Really tying the idea of surveillance and with craft techniques.
So, yeah,
that's a little bit of a background to what I've been thinking about
and working on, and then I'm really thinking about the way it's set.
Tech companies. And then it also went, you know,
other kinds of industrial design,
really cool on fabric and cloth and fiber and craft to bring a
sense of familiarity and coziness to technologies that are often quite
extractive can be damaging,
can be collecting a lot of data about people.
And so, yeah, that's what.
That's that's how I kind of came to be writing about craft in this
instance. And.
Thinking about the ways that craft makers,
crafters and fiber athletes and other kinds of artists.
Maybe can be wary of the ways that their work and their techniques are
being cooled on and utilized by by companies who often don't have
people's best interests at heart.
And yeah.
And yeah. Thank you to, to Sean in the comments talking about.
Ivy Ross.
Who ha, who is a designer and maker of NetFlow?
And then, so that's, you know,
just interesting to think about the ways that commercial design and
industrial design come together with more craft techniques.
And artists and crafters are cooled on into, in these worlds as well.
So, yeah. Thank you very much.
And I believe next up we have Rachel.
Coming on.
Wonderful.
Welcome Rachel.
Hi there.
Hi, everyone.
My name is Rachel.
And I am an independent curator and art historian,
and I was one of the jurors.
So first I wanted to say thank you to the ACC and also to Glenn and
Indira my fellow jurors.
It was fantastic to be part of the conversation to think about.
Kraft writing.
For this award.
Thank you. Belina and thank you, Kelly, for your presentations.
It's really exciting to be hearing each of you talk about your work
and I'm honored today to introduce our third presenter and Lois Moran
award winner.
R M.
Consequently.
RM is a fiber and social practice artist, a writer and an educator.
She holds a BA from UC Berkeley and an MFA in fiber and material
studies from the school of the art Institute of Chicago.
Where she is also currently an adjunct associate professor.
Her work centers, immigrant and disenfranchised communities.
And often involve skill sharing to create multi-ethnic and
intergenerational learning such as sewing circles,
which become a place for empowerment, subversion, and protest.
Arm's art has been exhibited at several Chicago venues,
including the Jane Adams, whole house museum,
the Hyde park art center and the Chicago cultural center.
As well as at the Pulitzer arts foundation in St. Louis.
The museum of contemporary art, Denver,
and the moody center for the arts in Houston.
This year,
she'll have solo exhibitions at the museum of contemporary art,
Cleveland, and the Skirball cultural center in Los Angeles.
She is the recipient of numerous awards,
including a 2016 Smithsonian artist research fellowship.
And her project protests,
banner lending library was a finalist for the 2016 Beasley design
awards at London's design museum.
And now of course, our M is also one of the three recipients.
Moran or.
Writing.
So Aaron's article how white supremacy manifests for my BiPAP students
in art school was published last summer in art journal.
My own professional context has been within art museums and the
academic world of art historians.
Arm's topic provides really valuable insights about the
complicated experiences of BiPAP students studying in an art school.
But I was struck by how relevant her observations were for all of us
who work and teach in the art world.
As jurors, we felt this essay had broad implications for the,
for how the field of craft addresses internalized white privilege in
all of its institutional spaces.
In order to foster conversations that honor diverse experience.
So, thank you.
And congratulations and welcome.
Well, the sound much for that introduction, Rachel.
Jason. If you can run my slides for me, please.
And the meantime.
So it's such an honor to be here today with such amazing.
Cohort and jurors. So thank you. So my name is.
I use she, they pronouns.
I'm based in Chicago.
The Homeland of the council of the three fires.
[Unknown] nations.
I'm currently at an artist residency.
Hermitage artists retreats.
In Anglewood Florida, which has Colusa and Seminole territory.
So I am a fiber and socially engaged artist, educator writer.
And at the core of everything I do, my goal is to disrupt unsettle,
rupture, dominant narratives,
to really claim space for those who are commonly other
particularly coming from my perspective of being an immigrant of
color.
And I work really to center immigrants into.
And people of color to tell our own stories.
So you can go to the next slide.
So I'm going to show a couple examples of my artwork as an artist.
And I think it's all related and coming from the same place. Right?
So I do projects like this,
the official unofficial voting station voting for all who legally can,
which is a large.
Multi-year large-scale socially engaged project and participatory
project.
But I did in 2016 and 2020.
Where I worked with over 50 collaborators to create more than 75
unique and different official and official voting stations.
That creates symbolic boating opportunities for the 92 million plus
people who can't legally vote in the United States during the present.
The general presidential elections.
Next slide.
So I come from social and racial injustice. I get.
It's against the disenfranchising.
Oftentimes I do it by riffing off of these official institutions or
bureaucratic processes to reimagine new inclusive humanized systems.
Civic engagement and belonging.
Next slide.
So I often work with a lot of collaborators to create these
participatory and active environments where safety play and skill
sharing are emphasized.
And even though my projects are collaborative and communal in nature,
they incite and highlight individuals, experience politics and voice.
So for the next slide, this is participant or lending library,
which I've done since 2016.
I've been facilitating free and public participant or making
workshops. I'm running lending libraries of these.
Participators.
Next slide, please.
So in these workshops,
those are really important to me and really importantly,
pedagogical and why I bring this up, right?
Because it all sort of aligns with my teaching and the inspiration for
this.
Texts that I wrote.
You know, it,
the workshops are really important because they place the skill.
Of making to the participants.
But also it's really important for me that in most non-Euro Western
cultures, art is made collectively and not by an individual.
Right.
So the next slide.
This is there's more than 3000 banners that's been made in workshops
and there's participant or lending libraries in cities all over the
United States and internationally as well.
So I am also an arts educator.
I'm now in my eighth year of teaching in higher ed.
I've spent seven of those years as adjunct faculty at the school,
the art Institute of Chicago.
And one of those years as a visiting artist.
University Chicago.
So teaching and being an educator.
It means everything to me.
I'm an artist today because I had amazing educators and mentors.
Encouraged and supported me.
And this leads me to my text.
So for the summer print issue of art journal.
I wrote how internalized white supremacy.
LFS for my BiPAP students in art school.
Which.
You can see in the next slide.
So I'm going to read the intro for the text.
I think it just explains it the best. So.
I'll go to the next one as well.
Thank you.
So.
I'm a woman of color and an adjunct faculty member at a predominantly
white university.
PWI.
As I am an artist who makes work about identity politics.
My classes are full of black indigenous and people of color
students who are often negotiating how their identities play a role in
their art practices.
My BiPAP students do a tremendous amount of work to navigate a PWI Abe
research classes to seek out by hip-hop faculty.
With whom they feel safe to talk about their works and identities.
My students seek my mentorship and confide in me,
their frustrations about learning at a PWI.
And I spent a lot of uncompensated time and energy to listen to you,
hold space for and guide students to make sense and process their
everyday incidents of discrimination and racism.
Most of their experiences come from everyday interactions in the
classroom with their predominantly white professors and peers.
As we know, the maintenance of racial subordination is largely.
Unconscious express or quotidian.
Interaction.
And every day microaggressions.
Sometimes the BiPAP students do not do assigned readings simply
because they are tired of the white Canon.
Sometimes they stopped showing up to class because they do not.
Feel safe and included there.
Sometimes my most engaged students are seen as confrontational and
there are other courses.
Cause they actively question and challenge white supremacy in the
classroom as it manifests.
And is expressed by their predominantly white peers or professors.
Over the years I've written down the concerns of my students.
That they'd shared with me.
And these concerns are genuine contemplations and questions from my
students that explode expose an ugly reality of white supremacy in art
and art education.
Like oppression.
Some of these points are clear and while others are harder to decode
and understand, it's not a comprehensive list,
but more of a constellation of thoughts or realizations.
So, yeah.
So with this text, I really wrote this.
Because.
Yeah.
In my years of teaching and over the years I've had so many students
have such similar concerns.
And I was really trying to look for texts.
That could support.
MI or even that could support my students. Right.
But not really finding them out there.
So then I decided that this is something that I have to write on my
own. Right.
And so this is where that comes from.
And the next slide.
So I,
I sort of go through four main types of comments and questions that my
students bring up. So this first one is really about labeling, right?
And being labeled as marginalized artists.
Because so many of my students have this fear and I must say it never
really goes away because these concerns are things that I hear and
feel myself. Right.
As professional artists of color.
Right. And so, so I go through that, the second category,
which you see in the next slide.
So I, in this text,
I take quotes from my students that I've written over the years,
like I said,
and sort of spend some time to decode what is being said and the
next slide.
You could see the second category that I write about is really about
questioning of privilege, right? So can I make work about being.
You know, a former student asked me,
can I make work about being undocumented? Yes.
But I'm so privileged to have access to this PWI. Right.
And so I think that is really, it really.
Shell's how internalized it can get. Right.
And when we really think about this question,
it gets really decoded to express.
Who are you to represent your own culture?
People who are you to speak for them?
Right. And so I talk a little bit about that.
And the next slide.
I talk about how.
My students get really self-conscious right about making work that.
If they do take their identity and, and culture head on is like,
I'm going to make work about this.
Then when they do, they get so much pushback, right.
Because it's still gets policed and challenged by white racial logic.
Right. So.
Students are asking questions like, am I appropriating my own culture,
my fetishizing myself, like, and I think that is really damaging.
And like I said,
it just shows that whiteness still has the power to represent and
defined, but we are.
And the next slide I talk about.
Of course this, you know, my,
my students oftentimes limits me that when they make work about their
own life experiences, they're constantly told to research, right.
They're constantly asked to be the researcher and the research.
And so I talk a little bit about that as well.
The conclusion of the text. I talk about.
Adrian Marie Brown saying we can be scholars of belonging.
That we can create this irresistible place for each of us to make
space for our harmful victim and hurt ourselves.
And we can really work inside the classroom to be a safe place where
we can learn and unlearn things together. We can talk,
listen to one another and really trust each other as victims of a
system that doesn't love anyone.
And that we can accept that that process is really messy.
So in the next slide.
And the final one.
I just also included.
That for this art journal.
Issue that cute rage press created this commissioned art project,
which is a collaboration between me and issue.
And we are two cute Asian American women who are full of rage.
So we are key range.
So it created this sticker sheet to be used that.
The first half is about affirming your students.
And then the second half has these stickers to call out your
institution. So some of my favorite stickers include graphic.
Korean heart fingers, right?
And then.
Don't ask.
And, and on the bottom,
some of my favorite are don't ask me to be on your diversity.
Committee and no.
You can't take a photo of me to use for marketing.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you so much.
And grade to have that summary of the article for those who haven't
had a chance to read it.
And I would just encourage everyone to follow the links in the chat to
actually read these things, because there's a reason.
They were award winners.
There I'm filled with powerful ideas, but also beautifully written.
And I'm really deserve.
The platform that.
The ACC has enabled them to have, so thank you.
To all of our speakers.
We're now going to migrate into conversation mode.
And so the drill here is that each of us as jurors are going to ask
a question.
For general commentary.
So looking particularly to our awardees to respond to these questions,
but of course, we'll talk amongst ourselves.
And I'm just going to kick off by asking you a question really
inspired by Lois as example. And I should say.
That I had a.
Kind of wonderful experience with her,
myself in that she was the first person to ever edit my published
writing. And in fact, the first thing that I tried to publish.
With her, she turned down.
Which is probably the best thing that she did for me.
It wasn't very ready to publish that.
So then she did.
Work with me very closely to help me develop my own writerly voice.
And she did that for so many people.
So it's great work people together here in her memory.
She really was a kind of quietly powerful force in moving the field
ahead.
And it's interesting to note that the time that she spent at the
council, which amazingly lasted all the way from 1964 to 2006,
So, you know, for decades at the ACC.
Also happened to coincide poly through Rowan efforts. I'm sure.
But almost at exactly overlap with what we might consider to be the
studio craft movements, Peaky.
Peak years of cultural influence.
That might be so slightly debatable,
but I think the chronolo chronology is, is about right.
So the question I have is really about the difference between then and
now.
We seem today, at least to me,
to transition into a very different craft world, which is more,
de-centered more diverse.
Perhaps more technologically adjacent.
So these are themes that have been picked up in.
By our three essays.
And I'd like to ask everyone for your thoughts on what all of these
changes mean specifically for the act of writing.
Because that's what we're here to talk about.
So, of course there's lots of ways we can talk about.
Diversification or a technological shift, but what I'm.
But I wonder is whether you have thoughts about what opportunities and
challenges exist for us now,
as compared with them specifically as writers.
Does anyone want to take that on first?
I'm going to call on somebody.
I've really struggled with this question.
Because.
I do not necessarily believe that we transitioned into a more,
the first.
Craft population.
I think everyone will agree that.
Black Americans have a unique relationship.
With this country, we are the only people here that.
Came against our will.
Everyone else came here because they want it to be here.
And so the.
The tide of anti-blackness.
Helps.
Stops us from fully participating in.
Any system.
And the craft system.
It's just as full a systemic racism.
As every other system in this country, I mean, it's just pervasive.
There's nothing unique in, in our situation.
And also my own experience in that I have been
subjected to.
Anti-blackness.
On several occasions where was just obvious.
Oh, I'll give you one example.
I had called a local.
Group of artists and I wanted to join their group.
And let's all. Sure. Come on. You know, come on.
We have a meeting on Wednesday.
Out fine.
And then when I show up.
They told me that they were closed.
So I.
I can only interpret that.
As anti-blackness.
So the first city is a diversity is a misnomer.
It just means that there are people included that have
bought into the idea.
That the collective black is not.
Desirable situation.
So.
That's kinda.
Just also an issue here where.
And all the black artists.
Talked about this.
Doing the black lives movement.
During the murder to her Floyd, Georgia.
We all got calls.
Do something, you know, based on this social.
Situation that we're in.
That's offensive. That is just truly offensive.
Why are we required to educate others?
On something that affects us all.
And so we do not get that same phone call to
appear in a group.
An exhibition on any subject,
except except when it's related to blackness.
And there was a, well, I started writing this article.
I looked at the Los Angeles.
Sam report.
And they had an exhibition black power.
Art from the 1970s. Right. And it was really a good exhibition,
but the thing was, I looked at every other exhibition,
there was not a single black artist.
So we are being.
So cramped and this little corner.
And the art world that it is difficult to say.
That there's diversity.
So.
I've just closed by saying.
We don't want to be.
Sold as one group, we are not black artists.
You are artists. We all have our own different things.
We are not going to be your social voice.
It is not up to us to educate the world on how not to be.
Racist.
I just ask that you every individual and I think there's a lot of
value in individuals.
Just looking inside themselves and saying, okay,
Should I change my thinking. Let me stop right here.
Is there some validity to what she's talking about in this.
Excuse me and this article.
So.
The logic of all this is that.
We are now in a place where.
The art systems are blaming.
Black artists.
For not being a part of it.
So when you tell me, oh, they're running black artists,
or I don't even know.
I could sign a black horse.
Us for not showing our work. This is not our fault.
This is something that you have to learn to incorporate.
It's not something that we can teach you.
You have to have the paradigm shift in your own thought processes. So.
Oh,
The one thing I will say is that.
I think that the first city has been a plus,
but then my question on diversity is.
And Adrian and I got into this.
Several times.
If you are.
A student say you're an African student or you're an Asian student.
And you come to this country to get educated.
And then you go back to your country.
So are you a minority while you're here?
You come from a majority.
Contrary.
You're only here to get an education,
but you're granted minority scholarships.
So think we've sort of lost our way on how do we work to help the
people that are here? The people that have.
That want to be here that have struggled and the artists that are
being ignored.
So my thing is.
Except that there is anti-blackness.
And ask yourself, what can I do to change that?
That's all.
Thank you for Lena.
Yes. Thank you.
For those powerful words.
Do others.
I want to talk to the specific issues.
I'm particularly.
Wondering if, if other folks would have comments on how writing.
As a discipline and an endeavor.
Operates within the.
Framework.
Galina's just eloquently described.
Does anyone have thoughts about that?
Yeah. I really agree with a lot that Valina.
Mentioned right. That this diversity.
That people keep.
Sort of presenting is likely to said virtue signaling. Right.
And it's like, it's it's so co-opted,
it's so shallow.
It's so like there's so much now it's like a critique on.
Whiteness since.
It's but it, you know, all these statements, right.
But like all these institutions put out
when, when that violence, when black lives matter,
when George Floyd was murdered, like.
And the Asian hate, like all of this,
all these like statements that people are putting forth are like,
just so shallow.
Right. And, and when we're looking at the changes that are happening,
It's so slow.
Right. If.
If there is any at all, right? Because like who's,
who's the editors. And then.
As these journals are or magazines or
who is making those decisions, it's still predominantly.
By so much, and we know this white.
Right.
And so I think that, yeah,
they're sort of it's it's I don't believe it.
The change is not happening.
It's it's sort of actually getting muddier. And I think that that.
Is a really big issue, you know, and I think in terms of writing.
You know, it.
It's it's.
Let's say to be given an opportunity. You're right.
You have to have a certain, most times, right.
Have a certain type of education or.
Certain types of credentials.
You have to learn to write a certain way and.
You citations. And, and I think that was, you know,
I do that right in this text that I wrote,
but I was really excited that art journal gave me more flexibility to
like write more experimentally.
Right. And.
That I could make that up.
Right. But it, it,
I think that is something that we need to think about more right.
Within writing is like,
Those again, like those barriers that we're creating for no reason.
Right.
Well, I guess the reason is because we're.
You know, upholding and maintaining white supremacy.
That's the reason, you know,
And so I think that I would like for the fields and especially
in.
In particular towards writing for it to really be diverse.
It needs to be.
You know, we.
It can look different.
Right. And that needs to be okay.
Yeah.
Really, thank you so much for those words.
And I've been reflection on.
On what you're saying with regards to Glenn's Christian as well.
And I think.
These undoubtedly.
Changes in the craft world, you know, over the last 40, 50 years.
Some kinds of craft and.
Kind of been accepted more into the kind of like art world proper.
But still, you know, only certain kinds of crafts.
Valorized and brought him to museums and prestigious galleries.
And then.
As you say around.
Only certain kinds of writing.
I kind of given the opportunities to be presented in my catalog
essays, critical writing and magazines and things like that. So,
And then on the other hand, you know,
kind of craft has become more diffused maybe and crafters and others.
I kind of bought into service and a lot of different fields.
From, you know, Facebook has an artist program, apparel companies,
and all kinds of other companies you use kind of craft and art
teammates and.
And marketing and stuff. So I think there is this kind of diffusion.
And it means that in a way there may be more opportunities for writing
about craft, but again, only in certain forms and certain formats.
And then possibly with this diffusion, there are like fewer.
Opportunities for kind of collective thinking and exchange across
disparate areas.
And so that's one reason that I'm happy to be here and.
Happy that the American craft council.
Thinking about these issues.
I've got a fire engine going past.
Really can.
Really considering the way that often as both of the other.
Speakers talked about this kind of idea of diversity and you.
Diverse artists and crafters are often just tokenized.
Or only accepted if they can kind of conform.
In ways of doing things and talking is still really relevant. So yeah.
Anyway.
So maybe I'll just jump in here if that's okay. And.
And continue with the question that I had put forward.
Really.
Appreciate the ways in which you've started to talk about writing and
writing, shifting,
and really interrogating the idea of a diverse or de-centered.
Craft community.
Publishing, of course,
it's a very particular form of communication within the universe that
we all move in publishing is, you know, an act of communication.
It's risk-taking on the part of an author to put their work out there.
And then we also have to enter spaces that are,
that are still forms of gatekeeping about who has access to the
education to.
Become an author to become a writer and who has access then to even
get an article accepted somewhere.
And I think it's really important to keep all of that in mind.
When we, as authors and writers.
I seek to publish something.
We take it from writing it to sending it out there into the world.
We have different agendas,
different goals that we bring to why even we wrote it and then why we
want to publish it. Why we want to take it to that next step.
We might be trying to educate students.
Maybe we want to bring a new perspective to something that lots of
people have already written about,
but we see a different way to approach it.
And, you know,
sometimes we want to be amplifying topics that just haven't gotten any
attention or haven't had enough attention yet.
So I think when we were reviewing,
when we were doing our work as jurors,
I think we were also really struck that your three articles appeared
in different kinds of publications.
We found that really interesting and really powerful.
One of you appeared in a magazine that's pretty specific to craft
media.
One of you published in a leading journal for academic art and our
story.
And then one of you published in a tech oriented.
Publication. So I would invite you to continue this conversation.
You've already touched upon some of these issues,
but I'm really curious about how and why you sought the publications
that you ended up publishing in.
You know,
Y those publications represented a readership that you felt was
important.
And maybe if you're comfortable talk about like,
was there a struggle to get it published?
Have you tried and failed to get stuff published?
Because it couldn't find the right audience.
So I just open it up to continue the conversation with some of those
questions in mind.
Well, I feel fortunate. They cause.
My editor at Melson magazine,
Adrian and Dalton made this very easy for me.
I had just written.
And articles that was in there.
Magazine.
And I said, you know,
I think we need to talk about this in the scope of metal testing.
And does she just agree?
And I would new rider for her.
And.
We had some very difficult conversations through the process.
It was.
You know, asking questions like.
So.
There was one student that I talked with dat.
Did not want to be identified as black because she was from outside
the us. And so she wore wigs. So people would not know.
She was very fair skinned she wore with.
So people would not know she had anything in common with black
Americans. So is that something we should discuss in this.
Aren't going so we were editing it just so that it wouldn't be.
Thousand pages long.
But we also hit on some sensitive topics and I w I think we hit the
most important issues.
And the article, but.
My audience is anybody who will listen to me.
Sometimes I'm to cross.
Grocery store.
I'm from Pittsburgh.
There's a standing joke.
You know, you're in Pittsburgh.
If you're in a store and the person that's helping,
you doesn't even work there. So.
How we operate.
So I just,
I just really wanted to get my voice out there and I chose medicine
because that's what I know.
And even though I really consider myself not so much as an artist,
but a person who makes things I've made things my whole life.
And so I'll continue to make things and it changes and it evolves and
sometimes I'm full of fabric and sometimes I'm doing other stuff.
But for this time,
I felt really tuned into the metals community.
I had to really participate at with it. And it seemed ideal.
And as I said, I had also going to subject it to some of the.
The anti-blackness.
And I'll tell you another thing.
There's also.
An assumption.
That you're not qualified.
And so even though.
I have had my jewelry out and it was everywhere.
And you could tell it was, well, may.
Things like going into a studio at one of the associations,
I'd have people hovering over me.
Like they thought I was going to blow the studio up and, you know,
people trying to teach me basic things.
It was so frustrating.
Just the assumption that, oh, maybe she can't do it. So, yes.
I want my voice heard.
I want everybody to think about anti-blackness.
And.
In a new way.
I don't want you to think about the first city.
I want you to think about the individuals.
Affected.
I want you to think about anti-blackness. I want you to think about.
Anti-Semitic behavior. I want you to think about.
Behavior that is anti gay.
I want you to think about that, but each in their own context,
not as this.
Whole.
Because each one has its different.
Needs and obligations.
I can jump in.
Similar to you.
Maybe my audience is also just whoever will listen to me.
And so I think for the piece that I published.
It's in a publication called real life magazine, which is kind of an,
a.
Take science technology and society online magazine.
And it's more I'm I publish regularly.
And so I'm incredibly lucky and privileged have a good relationship
with the magazine and also a really wonderful relationship with an
attitude.
I feel like has been really formative.
To my own writing, helping me foster my ideas.
And really encouraging me.
So I think my writing comes from that kind of place of kind of
being embedded in a publication to an extent,
and having great relationships with people there and just the big
privilege to be able to.
Pitch weird ideas and have them accepted it and fostered.
And so I felt after working with that publication for a couple of
years, I really felt welcome to,
to pitch and write more eccentric pieces that really dive for a trunk.
You know, more traditional ration about technology and society.
And so for that reason,
I'd started to kind of write more pieces at Wharton.
Stuff from film and art theory and from craft and kind of materials a
little bit as well.
And so that's kind of how my piece came to be really wants just based
out of a long standing relationship.
That gave me access to the publication access to.
And great data and the freedom to kind of like right when I was
interested in and probably haven't published.
And so I wanted to use that kind of.
Position in that.
Privileged relationship that I had to stop thinking about more of
that.
And the more about craft and bringing in,
hopefully bringing in other audiences and writing stuff that was
accessible to people outside of the kind of take community.
And so, yeah, that's the, that's the framework within which.
But obviously I do come from.
You know, more of a traditional writing background. I am.
You know,
I'm educated in ways that are easier to publish for people. And so,
yeah, I.
Hope now as an editor myself,
then I can extend that privilege and that opportunity to other people
as well.
Effort for me. I, my audience is very specific, right. Because.
My students going through very, you know, like I said, these,
these sort of statements.
So many of them express similar.
You know,
obstacles or similar sort of pushback or critiques on their work.
And, and just seeing that.
I just, yeah, I was like, well,
I've been thinking about these things for a long time.
It took me a really long time to sort of understand what's going on or
like, and of course I don't understand.
We always like to start up even make sense of any of,
of why this is such an issue. Right. And so,
so I really.
You know, want it to speak to.
People who are educators, right.
To really think about what's our role in all of this, right?
Like again, diversity inclusion,
it gets talked so abstractly.
But we need to think about it on a personal level that we are a part
of it and our actions and what we say and what we say to our students.
Like it, it's all really, it's the biggest part of it actually.
And so that's why I really wanted to write for our journal to speak
specifically to art historians,
to art educators, to.
Grad students and college students that also read our journal and
yeah, it was, it was really great working with our first,
I was invited to write about my project official and officials voting
station for our journal open.
And to Nicole Archer, the editor, I was like,
But I also have this text I've been working on. I think I'm ready.
And so she got me in touch with our Journal's editor
Jordanna who was really excited about it. And like I said,
gave me a lot of flexibility in terms of like how I wanted to write
it. Right. Cause I didn't want to write it. So.
You know, I want it to be explore, explore that more. Right.
And like create.
Insert this art project within it and include that as well
as a part of that text.
And so that was really exciting. And, you know, art journal.
Most of the issues you have to pay.
To be able to get it,
but we also like agreed and thought it was really important to make
that.
Text for that issue.
Accessible online. So we also put that on our journal open,
and that was really important to me.
But yeah.
It had a very specific audience and yeah,
I've had a lot of people reach out,
particularly students of color who.
Who were just like, I feel seen and that.
Yeah.
I just.
And I still have people reaching out to me.
And every time I hear that, I, I get moved to tears, to be honest.
Hmm.
Y'all ready for a thought experiment.
So, this is one of the things I like to do.
Working with students.
And then also just when in the presence of other great minds.
Similar to what Molina was mentioning earlier.
How, like when you're part of a group.
You tend to get there's a professional tendency to get pigeonholed
into only like writing about BiPAP things or only doing exhibitions
with other trans folks or this or that.
And actually as artists, we can think about all sorts of stuff.
Right.
And we all know there's a pathway of working,
taking things which exist in the world and then sort of alchemizing
them. However,
we want to make sense of it in our studio and with whatever material.
We're working with, and then we create something from that.
But what rarely gets happened?
It happens less. It's talking about the.
The knowing that arises from our studio practices and how that might
disperse itself.
Into the world and might act upon other larger social
problems. Right.
And it's something that when I travel outside of the U S seems to be a
very fluid part of conversations that I have in creative circles.
But within the United States, you know, well,
we're changing it all here today. So.
Here's my.
The experiment for you today.
Feel free to jot down notes if you want.
And those of you who are in the chat,
if you're having ideas that are bubbling up to the surface,
feel free to pop those.
So it's the year 20, 24. Let's just, you know,
Move forward.
And somehow I have become through a miraculous series of circumst.
Circumstances,
the first non binary president of the United States who knew America.
The hearing.
So I'm filling my cabinet positions.
And instead of having your Bisetta,
who is the secretary of human and or health and human services now,
It's the three of you are,
are filling this cabinet position for me.
So just to remind you,
the department of health and human services is established to enhance
the health and wellbeing of all Americans.
By providing for effective health and human services and fostering
sound sustained advances in sciences,
underlying medicine, public health, and social services.
That's really brought. So let's narrow it down just a little bit.
And we're going to focus on the issue of.
The issue of public health and social service,
as it relates to poverty.
So I think one of the things that some of us have always known,
but more people have gotten hip to,
with everything that's been going on in the past.
A couple of years is how poverty intersects with your
ability to recover from.
Illness, your ability to deal with job insecurity,
your ability to.
Move to a better place or not move to it,
but there's all sorts of childcare. It just goes on and on. Right.
The department of health and human services offers this about the
issue of poverty.
The topic of poverty is widely considered to be caused from national
action because poor families often encounter material hardships.
And reduced wellbeing.
And because children who grew up in poor households are less likely to
thrive.
As adults.
So I'm going to ask the three of you.
And anyone else who wants to like, you know,
pop a comment in the chat.
To begin to extrapolate.
From your unique knowledge basis.
A policy proposal.
To address some aspect of nationwide poverty.
Or the emotional and psychological states associated with it.
So I'll just read that again.
You're going to extrapolate from your unique knowledge basis.
So be that in metal, in tech, in, in.
Being in anything that is happening in your studio practice.
What have you learned there that could help you think about.
Addressing aspects of nationwide poverty.
And the, or the emotional or psychological states.
Associated with it.
There. Remember it's me. Who's president of the United States. So.
I'm really open to any kind of ideas that you have,
any kind of interventions, you know,
I'm here for a more creative country moving forward.
I mean nation states.
Yes, basic universal income. I see you.
Yeah, I would just leave it there.
And y'all can have at it.
Well, you really want to take our butt on this one.
And if you want to, if you want to.
I call into question.
What or who constitutes a, like, who is an American.
Because that's, you know,
that's a point of question to who are we providing care for?
Maybe we need to expand.
That as well,
maybe we need to think outside of the box in terms of what a nation
state experiment can be.
Y'all can take it in any direction that you want.
We're all creative people here. I think the point is,
is that we're thinkers first as artists,
there wouldn't be any objects or experiences were not for thoughts
that we had up here in the materialized,
through our practice and through our actions in the world.
But oftentimes that's forgotten.
Right. People just see the objects,
they see the experiences and they don't even imagine that we do any
kind of research.
Behind it. So this is an opportunity I think, to
yeah. To demonstrate your.
The flexible mighty mind.
I can give you a little bit of a thought on this festival.
People money.
Give people, the reason this is.
So that they can save and heal their own community using their own
methodologies.
And so I can say come to this idea of both and somebody who is
enhanced being a maker, but also somebody who has worked on.
Public policy, mostly in New Zealand,
but have worked on various projects around health and human services.
And then digital inclusion.
And poverty alleviation and what I've seen time and time again.
Is that government, which I'm now a part of in the U S miraculously.
Thank you very much, president.
Hold on to those power to distribute.
Distribute capital or distributed by a new mix of non-profits and
things like that.
But what I've heard from doing community based work is that people
have people know what they need to solve their own problems.
And that.
If you give people money and then can actually commit to changing the
power structures.
Which means that governments and companies in big charities are
historically the ones that have the power to choose who has money and
how it's distributed.
I think that is how we can kind of help to alleviate poverty in the
us.
And I think that in terms of craft,
if you give money directly to communities,
it will mean that people who will develop their own methods for
healing and finding wellbeing and using craft and making in community
practices, I assume, would be part of that in.
You know,
I know that craft is tradition and often the ways that cultures and
communities kind of embed their knowledge about materials and about
healing and building in the natural environment. And.
I'd be excited just to like give money to people.
Give me these communities.
And just have immune face that people would build their own practices
and kind of cultures of healing and wellbeing.
Thank you, Kelly.
That's awesome.
I'm looking at the chat too. I see.
From John.
Paid apprenticeships in the industrial trades,
building arts and traditional crafts.
From Carolyn working collectively on projects, ventures,
and everyone involved getting credit,
instead of only folks at the top.
Rahm's collective work is a great example of this around.
Did you want to say anything in response to that in the chat?
Thanks Carolyn.
I can answer my question, which is, I mean, I,
I have so many different answers,
but mainly the only answer is socialism. Right.
Because that would be so much right. In terms of.
Basic income.
Free education.
Right. Because like, I think Molina and I, you know,
your text talks about it and mine talks about it without directly
talking about it. But, you know, it's like, we don't.
When it's, if, if.
If education were free,
particularly even like these art colleges that are so expensive,
right? Like who is able to pay 50,000,
just on tuition a year to attend.
A private art school. Right. And so I think.
If we made that.
Free accessible.
Then we would have so much more diversity in terms of our student
body, not just, and then that makes diverse practitioners, right?
So like all these doors have to be removed.
And there are definitely ease. There are clear answers to do it.
It's just people aren't doing it. Right. And so I think.
That.
Social.
It's all about socialism.
Thank you.
When I was looking at your question.
First, I looked at it, you know,
from a macro level and I thought I'm from a micro level. And I said,
nah, that won't work.
Macro will that work thinking some economics, but.
What I came up with.
And the work as a craftsperson,
there are certain hard and fast rules to everything you do.
You have to heat hard solder to a certain temperature in order for it
to flow. You've got to add a hardener to residents,
got to have a catalyst in order for us to harden.
And so if you look at how we treat people with
hard, fast rules,
Jaz the UN's.
Document on.
Oh, shoot. Why am I drawing a blank here?
You at universal declaration.
Human rights.
If you took that document and before and its updates.
And before you make any decision on policy on budget,
Or law, if you took that and said, okay,
We're going to follow this universal document of basic rights.
It is a right to have healthcare. It is a right to have shelter.
And as you apply it to every decision that you make,
the results would then follow.
Elimination of poverty, the elimination of.
Whatever.
I also have another.
Yes.
To add. And that is, this is just.
Sorta the Pan-African socialists and maybe.
You know, give according to your, your needs to receive, I mean,
your ability and receive according to your needs.
And so with that in mind,
I would also eliminate donations to charity, so,
and make it mandatory.
Too.
Give to the government and then we can address what's most important.
Not why me to the moon what's most important is feeding the
children.
Making sure that everybody gets a good education.
You know, whatever opportunities for all humans in this country.
All those things available. So two part.
Thank you. Thank you. I want to hop back into the chat. I see.
Okay. Hello Canada. Here in Canada,
we have cooperatives connected to arts and other ways of showing
community-based care.
Removing eligibility standards.
That intrudes signify that only certain kinds of people can apply for
an internship fellowship or grant understand that an arts practice
concerning any age and be in any form. I love that.
Oh, my goodness. Okay.
Heather protect the environment for major industry.
I saw there was someone else.
Also too. Oh, yes. From Quebec.
There's a program where doctors can prescribe visits to the Montreal
museum of fine arts,
including free passes to help reduce stress and boost, mood,
improve wellbeing,
and give patients a chance to explore experiences and senses outside
of their illness.
Brilliant.
And Derek, can I do a shout out to, from the chat?
Because I see we have Heather from surf.
Yes. Yes.
Noting that.
I know we're in 2024 here,
but surf plus is already doing a lot of this work.
And really deserve.
Mentioned here because they are.
Thinking about how craft conserved.
As a.
Resilient.
You know, an economy of one, it can be.
Sort of resilient armature for an economy of one I may do.
You know, right in after natural disasters,
which of course are more and more caused by climate change.
We talked about.
Today, but as of course,
I'll always forefront in our minds and you know, that's,
that's obviously another major.
Means of achieving in Galatarian.
You know, liberation for the arts and.
Politically speaking as well. And.
While I have the mic.
Can I also just ask you.
Madam president, can we make January 13th, annual lowest Miranda.
I mean.
Hey.
Let's do it.
Listen, the, this question also from, so I'll answer it.
Myself, it's only fair or like,
sort of give more context as to where it comes out of.
I feel like because weaving is essentially like a religion
for me, or like a guiding philosophy.
It has helped me so much to think about working with tension off the
loom.
If I were to continue to sit down and do people have been doing for
30,000 years on the loom? That's great.
But I think that the call is to like any of us who've taken yoga.
Your yoga teacher is always telling you to like,
take the yoga off the mat. Right.
It's like, how do I take weaving off the loom?
Into the world.
And then become a woven thing myself.
In terms of how I approach situations.
Right.
So my ability to,
to be within the presence of tension in a very courageous way.
So directly related to my training as a Weaver.
I can't disentangle those two.
Right. So I think that there's,
I think that anyone who's working in this field and everyone who was
in the audience here, I just.
I just remind us because so often even within the art world,
we're kind of aligned. We're so smart.
We have such a resource at hand.
To help us go out into like the chat is like,
y'all you have all the answers.
Right here. Thank you.
You know, we'd have like a big cabinet party.
You know, 20, 24.
And a calendar.
That's the first thing we're doing for January 13th.
And we'll talk about all of these ideas.
I'm just so I'm so moved that. Yeah,
I think everyone's got it in them.
Rachel did you have.
Something coming out of like your curatorial practice or actually we
might be at time.
I think we're at time, I'm,
I'm incredibly inspired and moved by your question.
And by all the thinking that that people bring to this and you're so
right. There's.
An incredible talent and resource and genius within the
arts community to solve real social problems. So, yeah,
it's a beautiful thought experiment. Thank you.
Thanks everybody.
I just have to back in just to kind of.
Bring us all together. Wrap up.
I'm wrapping up what turned out to be a really lovely, lovely program.
Not that.
Any of us should be surprised.
But I just wanted to say thank you so much.
Rachel Glenn and Tierra Felina Kelly around who had to buy out
a little bit early.
Thank you so much for, for your time, for your thoughts,
for your writing, for your work.
Just really, really moved by the conversation.
And thanks to everybody who attended everybody who.
Put their ideas and their thoughts into the chat.
It's, this is the community.
I mean, we're doing great things. We're continuing to push.
Push for, for big changes and, and.
Go less.
So, anyway, thanks everybody.
And.
I think that's a wrap.
Thank you.
Thanks everyone.