User:Bxagon/sandbox

Author's Note:

Adding all of the sections below to Craftivism. Added some History & background and updated more contemporary movements in craftivism since 2009.

Craftivism is a portmonteau of the words Craft and Activism.

History & Background
Domestic arts (crafts) have been a feminized form of art throughout history. Because of its perceived femininity, it was often rendered invisible from larger conversations about art. Feminist crafters used this to their advantage in attempts to spread occulted messages spreading concepts of Second-Wave Feminism. [insert citation: google drive course reading]

Black Lives Matter
Sisters In Stiches was established in the late 1990s to raise awareness for a number of causes uses quilting. According to the group's website, "the art of quilting has traveled across oceans, survived 400 years of slavery and has been carried down by generations... Quilting connects us to our ancestry, preserves our memories and gives us a way to connect with generations to come."

In response to the killing of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, Taylor Payne and CheyOnna Sewell founded Yarn Mission, a "knitting collective that is purposefully Pro-Black, Pro-Rebellion, and Pro-Community for the achievement of Black Liberation."

Craftivism and Contemporary American Politics
Since the 2016 election, the massive increase in public activism has given rise to more methods of art activism and craftivism as well. The Pink Pussyhat Project was popularized with the Women's March from 2017 and 2018. There was also a movement called the Welcome Blanket project, which aims to show solidarity to immigrants and refugees by "reimagining the distance of the border between Mexico and the US as individual welcome blankets for new refugees and other immigrants coming to the United States". Additionally, there has been The Kudzu Project, a guerilla knitting art installation started in Charlottesvile, VA where flash installations of knitted kudzu vines were draped on Confederate monuments to "call attention to the role of role of these statues in perpetuating false narratives about the Civil War and white supremacy."

Criticisms
Craft activism has also been affected by intersectional identity-based discrimination within the practice. "The issue of inclusion/exclusion has long troubled the feminist movement, and it can be traced back to the suffragists, where Black women were excluded from conversations about voting rights". Similarly, the Pussyhat Project from the Women's March in 2017 and 2018 has been criticized for being exclusionary and primarily attended by cisgender white women. Craftivism, and the Pussyhat Project in particular, has come to embody white, liberal feminism, which is historically not intersectional. This mirrors larger concerns with participatory politics in general, but should not be discarded as inconsequential.

= New Media =

Virtual Craftivism
From even before the pandemic, the emergence of online crafting communities has facilitated new forms of participation and community. Even though it's been moved online, the social aspects of craft "were considered highly salient" because of the "profoundly collective phenomenon" of practices like knitting. Sites like Ravelry bring craftivists together through interest groups dedicated to social causes, like Compassionate Craftivists, Guerilla Knitters, and the previously mentioned Pussyhat Project.

Fighting COVID Isolation and Frustration with Craftivism
With stay-at-home orders issued in Mid-March 2020, there was an influx of people using crafts to cope with isolation. Craftivism has always been something that could be done from home, and many crafters have come together through virtual communities and gatherings.

Face Mask Distribution
Since the start of the pandemic, sewers and crafters have come together to create and distribute reusable fabric face masks. The demand for face masks, particularly reusable ones, came about with the supply shortage of personal protective equipment such as N-95 face masks throughout the pandemic. The Million Mask Challenge, a virtual challenge that started on Facebook and rapidly evolved to an international challenge to sew and distribute face masks to healthcare workers, then other frontline workers.

Black Lives Matter
Following the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and subsequent global Black Lives Matter protests, independent artists donated proceeds towards anti-racism projects, mutual aid funds, and national bailout funds to help protesters detained by law enforcement. Artists used sites like Etsy to promote BLM donations. Some crafters donated either a percentage of proceeds or in full, and others made crafts to spread the message of the movement, making t-shirts, face masks, and stickers. There have been criticisms, however, concerning non-Black sellers profiting off the movement. "Both independent creatives and companies should be donating profits to demonstrate solidarity," said Fresco Steez, an activist with Movement for Black Lives and co-founder of Black Youth Project 100. "And it can't just be a percentage. Otherwise, businesses [and creative independents] are essentially benefitting from the social struggles at the heart of the protests," she said.