Listening to black perspectives on what it means to design and stitch in white spaces from Miasia of stitching_in_color and Denise of Black Ribbon Stitch Studio.
Driven from a lack of representation in cross-stitch, Miasia Osbey aka stitching_in_color, is offering a free, virtual talk conveying what it means to design and stitch in white spaces. May 27, 2021 12PM EST. Register here and follow stitching_in_color on Instagram.
“@stitching_in_color was created to take up space and fill in the gap. The lack of representation in this craft didn’t stop me from stitching, but instead fueled a desire to learn cross stitch design and to stitch black joy, pain, triumph, and struggle unapologetically.” – Miasia Osbey
That quote is also under the embedded Instagram post, but I thought it was important enough to repeat. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to the rest of us that what Miasia says is true. I’ve long wondered why fiber arts in the US is mostly white people and is there anything I can do. I’ll certainly be in attendance for this presentation, but keep reading below to hear another black perspective from Denise of Black Ribbon Stitch Studio on Flosstube.
Denise of Black Ribbon Stitch Studio on Flosstube and Instagram
Near the end of this video, Denise explains why she has an aversion to samplers. You can go to the 40:44 mark in the video to get to her explanation, however she is also a delight to listen to. I’ve also typed a portion of what she had to say here for posterity.
“What I am asking is that when you are designing a sampler, recreating a sampler, stitching a sampler just take a minute and think about me. Think about me. Think about my people. Think about the other people that are present in that time and in that place that are not represented at all.”
This is definitely something I had not thought about with samplers. Those samplers that depict early white American history. Many perspectives are important so we may see the entire picture not just part of it.
Be the first to comment