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Fray: Art and Textile Politics
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— Fray explores textiles and their role at the forefront of debates about process, materiality, gender, and race in times of economic upheaval.
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. Fray , 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.
The first contemporary art history book to discuss both fine art and amateur registers of handmaking at such an expansive scale, Fray 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.
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. Fray , 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.
The first contemporary art history book to discuss both fine art and amateur registers of handmaking at such an expansive scale, Fray 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.
326 pages, Hardcover
Published October 16, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 11, 2018
This book is an absolutely brilliant, well-researched and compellingly written examination of the complexities of the politics at play in the textile arts. Textile art is maybe the most perfect medium to explore the tensions between high art and low craft. She shows how the gendered and racial histories of textile have contributed to a devaluing of the medium and held them back from acceptance in gallery spaces and art histories. At the same time, she questions the distinction between “low” and “high” art, arguing that practices in craft and “art” inspire and feed off of each other.
Bryan-Wilson also examines the links between feminist and queer activism with textile arts - that the adoption of these crafts became a celebration and reclaiming of their gendered histories and tied to the forging of identities. Yet, she still criticizes the problematic white washing of the racial and class histories of textile production in these modern textile politics.
She takes on the simplistic view that textile politics are inherently progressive, as argued by the 2000s “craftivist movement” by thoroughly analyzing two of the biggest examples proffered: Chilean arpilleras and the AIDS Quilt. Arpilleras may have been a form of resistance and critique of the Pinochet regime, but at the same time, they were commodities sold in foreign markets and subject to the demands of foreign buyers. Some subjects sold better than others - at what point does the market dictate the message? The AIDS quilt, long lauded as both memorial, grieving aid, and visual demonstration of the impact of AIDS is also not without criticism. Act Up frequently “tore into” the quilt as being too apolitical and refusing to demand action on the AIDS crisis. In the beginning, Clive Jones and other organizers were adamant that the quilt not be political. The quilt is also not necessarily representative - panels were submitted voluntarily by families and friends of the dead who had the time and money to make them, which may have excluded families from the lowest economic backgrounds. African Americans also appear to be underrepresented in the quilt, despite continuing to be overrepresented in HIV-AIDS diagnoses. But even so, the quilt is now too large to display in any one location and the Names Project is running out of funds and resources to both store, maintain, and repair the aging panels.
Bryan-Wilson also questions the supposed superiority of the hand-made handicraft of the Etsy and craft show crowd over factory produced textiles. Did you know that 200 workers contribute to the making of a pair of running shoes? Textile factories still employ by hand techniques, generally performed by underpaid and under recognized women of colour working in exploitative conditions due to a lack of other economic opportunities.
This book really got me thinking about my own position and privilege as a middle class white woman who knits and embroiders. I have to admit that I was buying into the craftivism narrative and the virtue of the handmade object without realizing some of the racial and class exclusionism of this POV and also without seeing the link to the neo-liberal economics at play. Brava, Julia Bryan-Wilson. Thank you for this phenomenal work.
Bryan-Wilson also examines the links between feminist and queer activism with textile arts - that the adoption of these crafts became a celebration and reclaiming of their gendered histories and tied to the forging of identities. Yet, she still criticizes the problematic white washing of the racial and class histories of textile production in these modern textile politics.
She takes on the simplistic view that textile politics are inherently progressive, as argued by the 2000s “craftivist movement” by thoroughly analyzing two of the biggest examples proffered: Chilean arpilleras and the AIDS Quilt. Arpilleras may have been a form of resistance and critique of the Pinochet regime, but at the same time, they were commodities sold in foreign markets and subject to the demands of foreign buyers. Some subjects sold better than others - at what point does the market dictate the message? The AIDS quilt, long lauded as both memorial, grieving aid, and visual demonstration of the impact of AIDS is also not without criticism. Act Up frequently “tore into” the quilt as being too apolitical and refusing to demand action on the AIDS crisis. In the beginning, Clive Jones and other organizers were adamant that the quilt not be political. The quilt is also not necessarily representative - panels were submitted voluntarily by families and friends of the dead who had the time and money to make them, which may have excluded families from the lowest economic backgrounds. African Americans also appear to be underrepresented in the quilt, despite continuing to be overrepresented in HIV-AIDS diagnoses. But even so, the quilt is now too large to display in any one location and the Names Project is running out of funds and resources to both store, maintain, and repair the aging panels.
Bryan-Wilson also questions the supposed superiority of the hand-made handicraft of the Etsy and craft show crowd over factory produced textiles. Did you know that 200 workers contribute to the making of a pair of running shoes? Textile factories still employ by hand techniques, generally performed by underpaid and under recognized women of colour working in exploitative conditions due to a lack of other economic opportunities.
This book really got me thinking about my own position and privilege as a middle class white woman who knits and embroiders. I have to admit that I was buying into the craftivism narrative and the virtue of the handmade object without realizing some of the racial and class exclusionism of this POV and also without seeing the link to the neo-liberal economics at play. Brava, Julia Bryan-Wilson. Thank you for this phenomenal work.
January 26, 2019
There is so much to like about this book: the writing, the research, the theory, the examples, the design . . . Julia Bryan-Wilson embraces the complexities of textile politics and textile history to provide comprehensive analyses of her chosen case studies using multiple perspectives. She remains critical and skeptical of "easy" readings of textiles throughout, reminding readers to do the same. Fray is an excellent example of art historical scholarship generally and an important addition to the growing scholarship on fiber-based practices specifically.
March 17, 2025
Incredibly thought provoking. The compelling historical examples largely shape the argument and illustrate- although not explicitly- the implications of the future direction of society primarily in the US. Such an interesting and crucial read in 2025!
November 12, 2023
Fray: Art + Textile Politics by Julia Bryan-Wilson was a very pleasant read! I'm so glad this was one of our monographs for my Theories and Methodologies of Art and Design History class. In general, this was a book about textiles and their use in art, and the relationship that textiles ~fray~ between high and low art.
In terms of approaches, I felt that Bryan-Wilson relied on theories like feminist theory, critical race theory, queer theory, marxist theory, and environmentalism.
Feminist theory was important to her discussions of the gendered-ness of textile-as-medium and to her discussions about why textiles have not traditionally been seen as art--they are usually anonymous women's work. This was especially pronounced in her chapter about the arpilleras, where women were making thousands of these unique Chilean decorative and political burlap sacks. Many of these women made them anonymously (partly because their subject matter was often taboo and could get them arrested) but also communally. Arpillaristas often did not see themselves as artists either, even though they made a lot of money from the arpilleras.
Bryan-Wilson also relied on critical race theory in many of her chapters. I felt this was most heavily pronounced in the AIDS Quilt chapter, where she notices that a majority of the people who have panels on the quilt were white men, despite the very disproportionate number of Black people dying of AIDS too. She even says that some people were reluctant to showcase the wide range of people dying from AIDS. This points to systemic issues concerning the curation of the quilt, and therefore would be a critical issue.
I do think that she could've taken this theory or lens further in her chapter on Harmony Hammond and her Floorpieces, because she often says that Hammon borrows traditions from Native American basket braiding, but doesn't really explore the origins of those traditions or perhaps the implications of this appropriation. She also talks about how Hammond sees the braid as a symbol for queerness, and I wonder if there should have been more discussion here about the symbol of the braid in other cultures, like the aforementioned Native basket weaving, but also the traditions of African Hair Braiding. I think the alternate symbols and traditions behind the braid perhaps should have been at least mentioned, as the braid has symbolic importance all over the place.
Queer theory was very prevalent in this first chapter though, and I really liked the discussions about queer fashion and the Cockettes. These costumes were fascinating and I think perhaps it was one of her most clear examples of camp and the mixing of high and low. I like the quote she includes that is like, "Queer textile handmade aesthetics exist where grit and glitter meet." But also I like the ways that she mixes feminism and queer theory in this section because she talks about how fashion is gendered female and coded homosexual. And the Cockettes and Angels of Life seem to have made a safe space where both women and men were able to practice textile work and be equally valued, which is again a sort of political fray of tradition.
I think she could've taken feminist theory and queer theory a little further in the AIDS chapter, and talked a little more about lesbian support during the AIDS crisis. Perhaps this would've been tough to relate back to textiles, but I thought it was interesting that only one sentence in this chapter acknowledged lesbian support in the AIDs crisis.
Finally I felt that Marxist theory was prevalent throughout, as she posed very necessary questions about the types of people who have the time and resources to create textiles and textile work (like the AIDS Quilt volunteers). But, she also focuses on a lot of textile work that uses "found" materials and would have been relatively easier for your average person to make, and she asserts that this was another barrier to seeing textiles as a form of "high" art. I think this ties into theories of environmentalism, because a lot of these textile movements, especially the ones taking place in the present, are in an attempt to take back and conserve resources and not participate in this late stage capitalist over-consuming society. It was interesting to read that this has been going on for some time now, since the 60s, as it seems pretty obvious now but I never thought about it.
I think what is at stake in this book is our serious regard for textiles. We need to have a serious regard for them because we use them, more than once every single day. I really liked her discussions, also in the vein of Marxist theory, about all of the outsourcing that happens with textile work. In this vein, the work of millions of underpaid and undervalued women is also at stake.
In one of my classes last week, we were talking about how "handmade" things should be more expensive because they are of better quality and take more time, and a student gestured to her shirt which she got from Target as an example of something that was low-quality. But her shirt from Target was definitely still "handmade." And this isn't the first time I've noticed someone assume that a machine is stamping out their cheap clothing, which I think is really interesting. In the introduction Bryan-Wilson addresses this, and I think this is a good place to close about how textiles fray (politically) between a high and low craft. She says,
"Yet in the context of early twenty-first-century discussions about the supposed evaporation of handmade things, it is essential to ask questions about whose handiwork, exactly, is at issue: some is vastly undervalued but central to the mechanisms of capitalism, while some is triumphed as 'revolutionary' and posited as a form of economic refusal."
In terms of approaches, I felt that Bryan-Wilson relied on theories like feminist theory, critical race theory, queer theory, marxist theory, and environmentalism.
Feminist theory was important to her discussions of the gendered-ness of textile-as-medium and to her discussions about why textiles have not traditionally been seen as art--they are usually anonymous women's work. This was especially pronounced in her chapter about the arpilleras, where women were making thousands of these unique Chilean decorative and political burlap sacks. Many of these women made them anonymously (partly because their subject matter was often taboo and could get them arrested) but also communally. Arpillaristas often did not see themselves as artists either, even though they made a lot of money from the arpilleras.
Bryan-Wilson also relied on critical race theory in many of her chapters. I felt this was most heavily pronounced in the AIDS Quilt chapter, where she notices that a majority of the people who have panels on the quilt were white men, despite the very disproportionate number of Black people dying of AIDS too. She even says that some people were reluctant to showcase the wide range of people dying from AIDS. This points to systemic issues concerning the curation of the quilt, and therefore would be a critical issue.
I do think that she could've taken this theory or lens further in her chapter on Harmony Hammond and her Floorpieces, because she often says that Hammon borrows traditions from Native American basket braiding, but doesn't really explore the origins of those traditions or perhaps the implications of this appropriation. She also talks about how Hammond sees the braid as a symbol for queerness, and I wonder if there should have been more discussion here about the symbol of the braid in other cultures, like the aforementioned Native basket weaving, but also the traditions of African Hair Braiding. I think the alternate symbols and traditions behind the braid perhaps should have been at least mentioned, as the braid has symbolic importance all over the place.
Queer theory was very prevalent in this first chapter though, and I really liked the discussions about queer fashion and the Cockettes. These costumes were fascinating and I think perhaps it was one of her most clear examples of camp and the mixing of high and low. I like the quote she includes that is like, "Queer textile handmade aesthetics exist where grit and glitter meet." But also I like the ways that she mixes feminism and queer theory in this section because she talks about how fashion is gendered female and coded homosexual. And the Cockettes and Angels of Life seem to have made a safe space where both women and men were able to practice textile work and be equally valued, which is again a sort of political fray of tradition.
I think she could've taken feminist theory and queer theory a little further in the AIDS chapter, and talked a little more about lesbian support during the AIDS crisis. Perhaps this would've been tough to relate back to textiles, but I thought it was interesting that only one sentence in this chapter acknowledged lesbian support in the AIDs crisis.
Finally I felt that Marxist theory was prevalent throughout, as she posed very necessary questions about the types of people who have the time and resources to create textiles and textile work (like the AIDS Quilt volunteers). But, she also focuses on a lot of textile work that uses "found" materials and would have been relatively easier for your average person to make, and she asserts that this was another barrier to seeing textiles as a form of "high" art. I think this ties into theories of environmentalism, because a lot of these textile movements, especially the ones taking place in the present, are in an attempt to take back and conserve resources and not participate in this late stage capitalist over-consuming society. It was interesting to read that this has been going on for some time now, since the 60s, as it seems pretty obvious now but I never thought about it.
I think what is at stake in this book is our serious regard for textiles. We need to have a serious regard for them because we use them, more than once every single day. I really liked her discussions, also in the vein of Marxist theory, about all of the outsourcing that happens with textile work. In this vein, the work of millions of underpaid and undervalued women is also at stake.
In one of my classes last week, we were talking about how "handmade" things should be more expensive because they are of better quality and take more time, and a student gestured to her shirt which she got from Target as an example of something that was low-quality. But her shirt from Target was definitely still "handmade." And this isn't the first time I've noticed someone assume that a machine is stamping out their cheap clothing, which I think is really interesting. In the introduction Bryan-Wilson addresses this, and I think this is a good place to close about how textiles fray (politically) between a high and low craft. She says,
"Yet in the context of early twenty-first-century discussions about the supposed evaporation of handmade things, it is essential to ask questions about whose handiwork, exactly, is at issue: some is vastly undervalued but central to the mechanisms of capitalism, while some is triumphed as 'revolutionary' and posited as a form of economic refusal."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 3, 2024
Bryan-Wilson writes Fray as if an act of quilting itself, stitching together a history of artists, communities, and their textiles. I especially admire her conversations of textiles being a system of language, holding their own interpretable (and sometimes contradictory) semiotics and being a means of raising visibility to those histories/identities/ideologies that have been censored. She also sheds light on textile's inherent materiality as one of corporeality with our notion of "hands-on" creation and with textiles often becoming the clothing and quilts we adorn ourselves with. Textiles within Fray become a means of embodiment, of memory, of trauma, and of a performative body. As with much of Bryan-Wilson's work, Fray is an intersectional exploration of textiles, delving into the contexts behind the 1970's feminist group Ladies’ Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society and the handmade outfits of the Cockettes to Chilean arpilleristas and the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.
I highly recommend this book!
I highly recommend this book!
March 4, 2026
A very well-constructed deep dive into the relationship between textiles and politics, Fray was a wonderful read. I think my favorite section has to be where Bryan-Wilson discussed the impact of Chilean arpilleras, and the factors influencing their creation and distribution.
October 26, 2025
(art history research)
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November 17, 2017746.08 B9154 2017
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews