by Ansie van der Walt Image above: a Ramallah (Palestine) head shawl, photo from @tirazcentre In her book Threads of Identity, Widad Kawar tells the stories of four women she knew who played a significant role in not only creating beautiful tahriry embroidery and malak outfits but in spreading its legacy across Palestine and beyond. Women from Beit Dajan … Read more
by Valarie James NOTA: puede ver la historia en español abajo del inglés One day in the winter of 2021, Cecilia, a mother, a migrant, and an indigenous weaver from the mountains of Guerrero in Southern Mexico, saw an old broomstick tossed aside at the border shelter in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. From that day on, … Read more
by Deborah Robson If you have not yet watched “A Sheep’s Tale: Preserving the Churro,” the WARP-organized webinar about Navajo-Churro sheep, don’t miss it. The three presenters—Molly Manzanares, Alta Piechowski-Begay, and Lyle McNeal—have been stars in one of the primary constellations by which I’ve navigated my life for a number of decades. In 1985, when … Read more
by Tara Gujadhur What do you imagine when you think of a museum? Spare displays of ancient objects on a white wall? Taxidermy? Tiny print labels with obscure words, the name of a donor, and an accession number? In the 21st century there has been the much overdue recognition that the traditional model of a … Read more
by Linda Ligon If you’re a weaver, maybe over the age of 40, and someone says “green book,” you know exactly what they’re talking about. That label doesn’t describe the title or the content or name the author, but its existence since 1944 has created an ecosystem of readers—tens of thousands of them—for whom it … Read more
Above: Group photo with the tejedoras of “Asociación de Desarrollo Integral Rial Poop B’atz”, Chamelco, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. Photo credit: Lyndsay Harshman by Bob Miller The most recent WARP online panel discussion “Follow the Thread: Textile Tours and Traditional Craft” provided a welcome hour for many of us, whether experienced past or hopeful future textile travelers, to … Read more
by Brenda Rosenbaum “Between 2013 and 2014, several of us weavers started noticing a practice that was becoming common. Businesses and individual designers who sell pieces of our clothes, especially huipiles, were approaching us and requesting us to weave textiles with certain changes in their figures and colors. Even when these changes were minimal, once … Read more
The above books written by WARP authors can all be found at Schiffer Books Ltd. (schifferbooks.com) by Deborah Chandler Recently we put out a call for WARP authors to send in a list of their books to be included in an online library, or at least reference list, available on WARP’s webpage for the people … Read more