Table Of ContentFray
Julia
Bryan - Wilso n
Fray
art + textile
politics
the university
of chicago press
Chicago & London
Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Neil
Harris Endowment Fund, which honors the innovative scholarship of
Neil Harris, the Preston and Sterling Morton Professor Emeritus of
History at the University of Chicago. The fund is supported by contri-
butions from the students, colleagues, and friends of Neil Harris.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2017 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in
the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more
information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St.,
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Published 2017
Printed in China
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isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 07781- 9 (cloth)
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 36982- 2 (e- book)
doi: 10.7208 / chicago / 9780226369822.001.0001
Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Millard
Meiss Publication Fund of the College Art Association.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bryan-Wilson, Julia, author.
Title: Fray : art and textile politics / Julia Bryan-Wilson.
Description: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2017.
| Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2016058305 | isbn 9780226077819 (cloth : alk.
paper) | isbn 9780226369822 (e-book)
Subjects: lcsh: Fiberwork—Political aspects. | Art—Political
aspects—Case studies. | Homosexuality and art—United States.
| Handicraft—Political aspects—United States. | NAMES Project
AIDS Memorial Quilt. | Vicuña, Cecilia. | Textile crafts—Politi-
cal aspects—Chile. | Feminism and art. | Art, Modern—20th
century—History.
Classification: lccn7433.9 .B79 2017 | ddc 746.08—dc23 lc record
available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016058305
This paper meets the requirements of ansi/ niso z39.48- 1992
(Permanence of Paper).
To Mel Y. Chen
Contents
Introduction: Textile Politics 1
1
Queer Handmaking / 39
The Cockettes’ Crafty Genders 42
Harmony Hammond Goes Down 72
2
Threads of Protest / 107
Cecilia Vicuña’s Concepts and Quipus 109
Arpilleras, “Tapestries of Defamation” 143
3
Remains of the AIDS Quilt / 181
Piecing the Names, 1985– 1992 183
Crafting Conflicts, 1992– Present 216
Afterword: The Currency of Cloth 251
Acknowledgments 275 Notes 279 Index 313
Fig. 0.01.
Ladies’ Sewing Circle and Terrorist
Society T-s hirt, detail, designed by
Sally-Jo Bowman, 1974 (copyright 1977).
Collection of the author.
Introduction
TexTile PoliTics
Around 1974, the mock organization Ladies’ Sewing Circle and Terrorist So-
ciety emerged out of conversations within a small feminist consciousness-
raising group in Eugene, Oregon. The women in the group laughed among
themselves about putting their faux moniker onto a T- shirt, but none took
concrete action until writer Sally-Jo Bowman drew up a design. She based
her sketch on an embroidery pattern that included a stem of flowers with
open petals and striated leaves, hoping the sweetness of the motif would
drive home the stark juxtaposition between the presumed harmlessness of
the sewing circle and the menace of the terrorist society.1 The resultant logo,
with its deceptively innocent flower motif and a crypto- Celtic-m eets–a rt
nouveau typeface, came to be emblazoned not just on T- shirts but also on
coffee mugs, stickers, and buttons (fig. 0.01). The circularity of the design
functions conceptually as well as formally: it breaks the phrase into two
grammatical and visual parts, leading to greater payoff as you first read the
prim top portion— “ladies’ sewing circle”— and then your eyes swing down
for the surprise of the punch line— “and terrorist society.”
What does it mean to imagine the sewing needle as a dangerous tool and
to envision female collective textile making as a process that might upend
conventions, threaten state structures, or wreak political havoc? The joke
relies upon assumptions about the very impotence of textiles and the as-
sumed absurdity of decorous “ladies”— not “women” but their more dainty
or polite counterparts—f ostering violent unrest. Made within the context of
a specific historical moment in the United States (as the women’s liberation
movement of the 1970s was nearing its crescendo and the Vietnam War was
coming to its bitter end), the slogan captures a bit of wry feminist humor
regarding the unlikelihood of textile groups fomenting illegal, dangerous
action.
Bowman took her design to a local T- shirt company (known for making
sports shirts) and had two dozen shirts silkscreened. They were a hit with the
consciousness-r aising group, so Bowman shopped them around to women’s
textile politics 1
