Author of Sheila Says We're Weird and Defenders of Dirt. Promoting creativity, craft, cooperatives, and communities of care. I believe ideas can inform and inspire positive actions.
"I know what concentration camps are. I was inside two of them, in America. And yes, we are operating such camps again." George Takei, 2019 Yesterday, I took advantage of some rare seasonal weather, driving through the countryside to relax in a small village. The town is blessed
"The past is never dead. In fact, it isn't even past." William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun This is post #12 in my Finding Throughlines project, and it seems like a good time to reiterate what I'm up to here with my Learn, Imagine,
"While President Donald J. Trump might well have his own reasons for hating a university famous for its brain power, the anti-intellectual impulse behind Trump’s attacks on higher education has a long history in the United States." https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-24-2025 My
"People in different countries, at different times and in different ways, have used needlework to speak when their voices have been silenced, to speak for those they have lost through political upheaval. Women, especially those who are illiterate or living in poverty, have used sewing because it is the
Eleven children were using corrosive chemicals to clean as well as perilous “head splitters, jaw pullers, bandsaws, neck clippers and other equipment” at a Seaboard Triumph Foods pork processing plant in Sioux City, according to officials. This is the second time federal investigators have found children working at that particular
"It is the goal of oppressive systems to make us feel hopeless, to take away our joy, to steal our imagination." Wanjiku Gatheru, founder of Black Girl Naturalist (qtd in Drawn to Change the World) I felt inspired and refreshed by our two week sojourn looking at craft
“Craft is the greatest tool I’ve ever stumbled upon for building communities and mobilizing them to take actions that will bring about actual social change. In fact, I call myself a community organizer disguised as a fiber artist. I trick people into hanging out together by promising embroidery workshops,
"Shape by your skirt a together-connectedness, /Unite multiple forms, colours and lines; / In the stream of historic events / Embroider the design with your heart and your hand"* If you've been following along with me these last few weeks, you'll know that I'
"Capitalism requires an ever-broadening disposable class of people in order to maintain itself, which in turn requires us to believe that there are people whose fates are not linked to our own: people who must be abandoned or eliminated" (32). Kelly Hayes & Mariame Kaba, Let This
"That evening I discussed the prospects of the new government with my father. We agreed that it had a good chance of doing a lot of damage, but not much chance of surviving very long: a deeply reactionary government, with Hitler as its mouthpiece . . . . Besides, who were the people
We create routes and routines to enable ourselves to conduct our lives. These allow us to carry out mundane tasks on autopilot. They also provide the necessary order undergirding the selves and communities we are always in the act of constructing. These mental and physical maps can be disrupted by
Let's jump right in. After November's election, I wracked my brain for a constructive response. Knowing what those first four years were like, I couldn't imagine how we'd withstand another round. Feelings of futility set in. But I took heart in the