September 2018

I am thinking a lot about anger and what to do with all of it. At the same time that my world is expanding and opening through listening and reading I am feeling overwhelmed by the sense of injustice.  An Australian cartoonist creates a horrible image referring to Serena Williams that is going viral all around the world and the vast majority of people can't see what's wrong with it.  A hurtful and racist joke by a black South African comedian emerges made about Australian Aboriginal Women and many come to his defence and make excuses, because comedy. I am reading The Hate Race by Maxine Baneba Clarke and a few pages in I am already in tears because I know exactly what she felt. I am reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates and I recognise that threat of violence on the black body  - its in my DNA.  What to do with all the anger? How to honour the complex feelings? How to go through the sense of futility? 

All I can do is to keep going. To keep making...stitch after stitch. I pour these feelings and thoughts into the work. I make the anger soft and pliable. I make the futility colourful and bright. I make the complexity a beautiful web of interconnected threads.