This page will focus on explaining and showcasing the Threads of Crafting Project that I have created. This project centers on the practice of collecting and displaying thirteen items that members of my family used for crafting or made themselves as gifts or for fun. Other sites have started collecting and sharing patterns for various hobbies and activities, such as the Antique Pattern Library , but in terms of collecting fibre history, there has been less focus on individual items made or used, and the stories behind those items. I want to showcase these items and what they mean to the individuals who have kept them. This project presents a valuable opportunity for me to practice collecting and explore a new approach to gathering in the fibre arts sphere.

How to use this site

You can explore the items in this collection in multiple ways. On the nav bar, there are three tabs: “browse,” “timeline,” and “data.” When you click on these tabs, you will find three different ways to explore the collection. You can also find items on this page by scrolling through the collection carousel below or by checking out the top subjects section on the right-hand side of the site.

Whose items are being collected?

As my first experience trying this kind of collecting, I have chosen to use my own family as my first dataset. Before explaining who is from my family in my dataset, I would like to comment on my family's background and the inherited privilege they have. Those in my family come from a white, middle-class background, meaning their stories are reminiscent of other stories often told. White and middle-class perspectives are often told over stories of those who are from a poorer economic background or of colour. This is particularly a problem in the fibre art community, where the voices of older, white, cisgender women are elevated over other voices in the fibre arts community. The purpose of this project is to explore collecting methods, and I have used a dataset that is most accessible to me, which is that of a privileged group. If collecting practices like this continue, I would advocate for diversity in whose stories are being represented and how they are framed.

For the safety and protection of my family and their art, I have kept their identity and mine private. Please keep in mind that all art on this site has been handmade and shared with an educational and collecting purpose in mind. Be responsible and kind when interacting with the stories and the art that the creators so generously shared with you. If you feel the need to share an item or have questions, you are more than welcome to reach out to the anonymous email address located at the bottom of this site. However, please do not share the item without permission.

Keeping the identity of my dataset secret protects them, but it makes it difficult to identify whose art is whose from my family. To make identification easier, I have created a family tree that outlines who is who and how they are connected to me and each other. All the names are fake, but these are the names by which the creator is referred to throughout the collection. If you look at the blue squares in the family tree, you can find information about who was interviewed and who passed away and therefore was not interviewed. The blue square also indicates if a crafted item they made was collected. If Collected is not added to their name, they were gifted something or connected to someone who crafted something.

How thingology plays a role in this project

When preparing this project, I gave considerable thought to the meaning of things by exploring the discipline of Thingology. Thingology is a study that explores the various aspects, emotions, and meanings associated with things. The prominent principle from Thingology I used was the idea of the physical aspects and the subjective aspects of the items. The physical aspects of an object refer to its appearance when viewed. Invoking questions about what pieces come together to make an item. For example, a table is made of four wooden posts and a rectangular flat piece of wood. This aspect of the items in this collection is displayed in the description section of each object. The subjective aspect of that item is about viewing that item as a table. The subjective aspect of an item goes even further as it explores the meaning of the item to individuals. In this project, you can see how I view an object and how I connected to it differently than my mother. I want to explore how each person who connects with an object sees it in new ways and has different connections to it.

To add Thingology into my project, I prepared questions to connect to the physical and subjective elements of things. After my first interview with my mom, I realized that this questioning method was far from perfect. I would start the interview by asking what an item was made of, and as she talked more about the item, the same question would come up again, making the interview choppy. I also felt that the humanity of the item was lost during the interview when those questions were asked. It was as if she were thinking of the object as an object, rather than the story she associated with it. It stopped being about the meaning of the item to the interviewee and became more about the parts of the item.

After the first interview, I switched my tactic. I kept the original questions in mind, but I didn’t ask them upfront; I let the person tell their story and filled in my questions later. I kept to questions about why the item was made or who it was made for in mind. When I went back to ask my mom more questions, I got more emotional or story-like answers. Instead of sticking to my questions, I would probe for emotional questions and get to learn more about her feelings. Keeping the ideas of Thingology in mind helped, but being able to probe my family and ask them leading questions gave me more detailed feelings and thoughts about the objects. My family are lovely people, but are quite dry, which was a difficulty I had to adapt to in this project.

When uploading the interviews to the site, I wanted to keep those stories intact. With more time, I would have liked to have their stories be told in their own voices, however, a lot of the information was scattered throughout the interviews. While the integration of meaning into my collection differed from my original expectations, taking the time to learn about the stories' underlying meanings helped me curate these stories effectively.

For more information about Thingolgy check out these sources: Brown, Bill. “The Idea of Things and the Ideas in Them.” Essay. In A Sense of Things: The Object Matter of American Literature, 1–19. University of Chicago Press, 2003. Brown, Bill. “The Decoration of Houses.” Essay. In A Sense of Things: The Object Matter of American Literature, 136–176. University of Chicago Press, 2003. Daston, Lorraine. “Speechless.” Essay. In Things That Talk, 9–24. Zone Books, 2004. Miller, Daniel. “Materiality: An Introduction.” Essay. In Materiality, edited by Daniel Miller, 1–50. Duke Univ. Press, 2005. Rowlands, Michael. “A Materialist Approach to Materiality.” Essay. In Materiality, edited by Daniel Miller, 72–87. Duke Univ. Press, 2005.

Authors Reflective Piece

This project is close to my heart because of its connection to my heritage and family. I have taken this project on to reflect on my family and our connection to fibre expression. I want to reflect on that piece of my self-discovery, but I also want to reflect on my experience as a curator and what that means. To do that, I have curated multiple questions that relate to my general self-discovery and my self-discovery as a curator. These questions are designed to help me reflect on my own choices and hold myself accountable for my curation. I have shared these questions and my answer here on my site because I think curation is an art form and art should be reflected on. The act of curation on its own is not unbiased. A curator actively chooses what they believe is important to preserve and what is not. Those choices are what decide what stories are told and what voices are heard. Being mindful of whose stories are being told how they are being told and what that effect is important to reflect on, and curators should be taking a larger part in understanding what they are doing and the effect it has.

Questions:

1. Why are you collecting these items? Who are you collecting for?

When I started this project, I thought I was collecting for others to hold on to the past, but after working on it for some time, I have realized that I have been collecting for myself. The reasons why my middle-class great grandma made a quilt are not going to change the world as we know it and affect everyone. Honestly, most people do not care about that. I do, though, and my family did. I learned so much about my family, my history, and for an experimental project like this I am glad I got try collecting for the first time through my history and learn about the people I love.

2. How did your collecting of these items affect others involved or viewing the collection you created, and how did it affect you?

I really enjoyed hearing these stories from my family and learning more about my ancestors who have passed away and how they impacted the people I love. I loved seeing the smile on my grandma's face as she thought of her husband and her mother. I tried to hide the identities of those in my collection as much as possible. As of now, I suppose my only impact was in helping them connect to these stories further, but as time passes, I want to reflect on how this site affects the people involved and identify areas for improvement.

3. Do you think you honoured the stories you tried to tell in your collection?

I think I did. I tried my best with the time and resources I had. There are, of course, things I wish I could have done better, such as having the stories narrated in the first person, in the voice of the person whose story I am telling. I believe I was able to convey the raw emotions of the people in my project in a sensitive manner. This project really taught me that everyone is different and that interviewing and collecting, and what is acceptable, changes based on who you are working with. I understood the boundaries of my data set very well, but over time, that may change based on who I work with.

If you have any comments or concerns about this collection, please reach out to superme240@gmail.com. We will get back to you in a timely manner. Thank you for checking out this project.