Fabric Art and Women's Work

One time, I sent a Facebook message requesting all my friends to share their art works to cheer me up after a bad day. One of my close girlfriends bashfully asked: "Does my crocheting count as art?"

To me, the answer is a no-brainer: of course crocheting counts as art! But I shouldn't be surprised that many women still feel that they're not "true" artists because the fiber arts they create have been dismissed by society for years as merely "women's work" or a "hobby."

But it doesn't take an expert to recognize that both the embroidery piece by Nikki and the hand-woven bracelets by Leah (displayed above) exhibit all the intricate attention to details, the masterful blending of colors, geometric patterns and lines, and the love that a traditional painter would pour onto their canvas.

Did you know that women-created fiber arts like quilts and other forms of needlework were not accepted as art until 1971, when art historians Jonathan Holstein and Gail van der Hoof mounted an exhibition entitled “Abstract Design in American Quilts” at the Whitney Museum of New York?

Arts have different media. Dance, embroidery, acrylic, canvas, watercolor, charcoal, knit, crochet, singing, quilting, photography, even cooking….all are arts.  So as long as we are creating beauty, even by simply existing, then we are art.