Books about Craft: This Long Thread by Jen Hewett

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This Long Thread: Women of Color on Craft, Community, and Connection (signed copy from the author, Bookshop.com) was published in 2021 by textile artist and designer Jen Hewett (IG @jenhewett). The book highlights the voices of women and nonbinary individuals across the textile arts world, expanding the opportunities for discourse among women of color about their experiences as hobbyists and business owners in the craft space.

Responding to Community Voices

Hewett traces the origins of this book back to online conversations in the knitting community in 2019 regarding the racist undertones of a post by a well-meaning white female business owner. In Hewett’s subsequent on- and off-line conversations with friends of color in the textile arts world, her peers explained that “they felt excluded from—underrepresented—in the craft community. They wrote that they don’t bother going into certain yarn stores because they feel they’re being racially profiled by the shop’s staff. They said they no longer participate in knitting groups or quilt guilds because of the microaggressions they’ve experienced in those settings.”

With these responses in mind, Hewett saw a pressing need to amplify the voices of crafters and artists of color. To do so, Hewett was inspired by the methods used in the 2014 text Women in Clothes (Bookshop.org) by Shelia Heti, Heidi Julavitz, and Leanne Shapton. Those authors drew from hundreds of surveys to share a diverse array of women’s attitudes toward clothing.

Following suit, Hewett brainstormed with her immediate community to create a survey to invite women of color to share their thoughts and experiences as crafters. The book manages to provide a wide array of voices as well as in-depth considerations of craft histories and practices. Hewett provides samplings from the 287 survey responses she received throughout the text and reprints the full survey responses from 18 individuals. Hewitt commissioned five essays and conducted 19 one-on-one interviews with crafters and artists of color.

When you hear about the extent of surveys and interviews, you may think (as I did) that perhaps this was a book with an academic sociological bent. It’s not, though. It’s a compilation of personal experiences and conversations, presented as a chorus to which we can listen.

Audiences for This Long Thread

Hewett explains her target audience as other women of color who have also felt isolated in crafting spaces.

“My primary audience is the diverse swath of crafters and artists featured in this book—people of color who are doing this work. […] They are the people who are not often a part of the craft narrative, but they are here. We are here. This book is for us.”

She also welcomes other readers who are interested in learning about these experiences, but they are not Hewett’s primary concern.

“This book is also for anyone who wants to learn about this rich, diverse community. As white folks grappled on social media with racism post-George Floyd, I saw many of them repeat the phrase ‘I’m here, I’m listening, I’m learning.’ This phrase has been repeated so often on social media that it’s almost become a cliché. But, if the sentiment is true, then this book offers them a chance to spend time with our words, to listen, and to learn.”

I take this kind of invitation seriously, and I’d recommend this book for any reader who is also earnest about their interest in hearing some of the underrepresented perspectives in the textile arts world.