{"product_id":"fray-art-and-textile-politics-9780226077819","title":"Fray: Art and Textile Politics","description":"In 1974, women in a feminist consciousness-raising group in Eugene, Oregon, formed a mock organization called the Ladies Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society. Emblazoning its logo onto t-shirts, the group wryly envisioned female collective textile making as a practice that could upend conventions, threaten state structures, and wreak political havoc. Elaborating on this example as a prehistory to the more recent phenomenon of \"craftivism\"--the politics and social practices associated with handmaking--\u003ci\u003eFray \u003c\/i\u003eexplores textiles and their role at the forefront of debates about process, materiality, gender, and race in times of economic upheaval. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Closely examining how amateurs and fine artists in the United States and Chile turned to sewing, braiding, knotting, and quilting amid the rise of global manufacturing, Julia Bryan-Wilson argues that textiles unravel the high\/low divide and urges us to think flexibly about what the politics of textiles might be. Her case studies from the 1970s through the 1990s--including the improvised costumes of the theater troupe the Cockettes, the braided rag rugs of US artist Harmony Hammond, the thread-based sculptures of Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña, the small hand-sewn tapestries depicting Pinochet's torture, and the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt--are often taken as evidence of the inherently progressive nature of handcrafted textiles. \u003ci\u003eFray\u003c\/i\u003e, however, shows that such methods are recruited to often ambivalent ends, leaving textiles very much \"in the fray\" of debates about feminized labor, protest cultures, and queer identities; the malleability of cloth and fiber means that textiles can be activated, or stretched, in many ideological directions. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The first contemporary art history book to discuss both fine art and amateur registers of handmaking at such an expansive scale, \u003ci\u003eFray\u003c\/i\u003e unveils crucial insights into how textiles inhabit the broad space between artistic and political poles--high and low, untrained and highly skilled, conformist and disobedient, craft and art. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Julia Bryan-Wilson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Chicago Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/16\/2017\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 326\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 2.95lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 10.10h x 7.60w x 1.10d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780226077819","brand":"University of Chicago Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48866614149257,"sku":"9780226077819","price":72.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0636\/9240\/6921\/files\/img_0526619c-0f45-4cbb-9f2d-c1a50c7bae43.jpg?v=1793683650","url":"https:\/\/sonsanddaughtersbooks.com\/products\/fray-art-and-textile-politics-9780226077819","provider":"Sons and Daughters Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}