In this episode of Stitch Please, which is a collaboration with the Asian Sewist Collective, Lisa Woolfork, Nicole Angeline, and Ada Chen (hosts of Asian Sewist Collective) talk to Jen Hewett about her work in print, how she got there, and what inspired her to call herself a textile artist. The trio talks about believing in one's voice, fully owning one’s craft, the inspiration behind Jen’s book, and what next to expect from her (Jen Hewett).
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Jen Hewett
Jen Hewett is a printmaker, surface designer, and textile artist. Depending on how you look at it, artist is either Jen’s second or fifth career. With a degree in English Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, she started her working life in education and educational nonprofits. She then briefly ran her own stationery business and took a few detours through business operations, human resources, and consulting before becoming a full-time working artist (again). She partly credits the success of her experience running her own creative business to her non-linear (but always interesting) career path.
Jen’s first book, Print, Pattern, Sew: Block Printing Basics + Simple Sewing Projects for an Inspired Wardrobe, was published by Roost Books in May 2018. Her second book, This Long Thread: Women of Color on Craft, Community, and Connection, was published by Roost Books in November 2021. Her clients include Anthropologie, Cost Plus World Market, Moda Fabrics, Unilever, and Yelp. Her work has been featured in Better Homes and Gardens, Uppercase, and MSNBC.
Lisa Woolfork
Lisa Woolfork is an associate professor of English, specializing in African American literature and culture. Her teaching and research explore Black women writers, Black identity, trauma theory, and American slavery. She is the convener and founder of Black Women Stitch, the sewing group where Black lives matter. She is also the host/producer of Stitch Please, a weekly audio podcast that centers on Black women, girls, and femmes in sewing. In the summer of 2017, she actively resisted the white supremacist marches in her community, Charlottesville Virginia. The city became a symbol of lethal resurging white supremacist violence. #Charlottesville. She remains active in a variety of university and community initiatives, including the Community Engaged Scholars program. She believes in the power of creative liberation.
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This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.
Lisa Woolfork 0:10
Hello stitchers. Welcome to Stitch Please, the official podcast of Black Women Stitch, the sewing group where Black lives matter. I'm your host, Lisa Woolfork. I'm a fourth-generation sewing enthusiast with more than twenty years of sewing experience. I am looking forward to today's conversation. So sit back, relax, and get ready to get your stitch together.
Y'all, this is something new. Here we are. This is the Asian Sewist Collective and Black Women Stitch with Jen Hewett, talking about This Long Thread. I am so excited. This is the first collaborative episode I've ever done. Like, have y'all ever done collaborative episodes before on your show?
Jen Hewett 0:56
Yeah, like we've been on other people's podcasts.
Lisa Woolfork 0:59
But I'm excited about this. I've never done it before, and this just felt like serendipity. Serendipity is a really fun word. And we should call this like a serendipity episode because so many beautiful things converged together to make this happen.
Jen Hewett 1:15
I thought it was our birthday party episode.
Lisa Woolfork 1:17
That too, that was really saying it was like Jen Hewett existing made this happen and the idea that we both have podcasts, and then we put all this together, and we are amazing, and I love us. And so I'm gonna turn it over to Asian Sewist Collective, because you all use Zencastr like all the time. This is how you all normally do things. And this is like a new way for me. I used to Zencastr audio only, but I've never used the video stuff. So all this is new for me. So I'm so glad to be here and to see y'all and to hang out. This is awesome.
Ada Chen 1:46
Hello, it's Ada. It's been a while for Asian Sewist Collective listeners. We use Zencastr—you may or may not know—behind the scenes to record everything. So it looks like a Zoom screen for all of us, but it's recording all of our video separately so that when we're talking over each other, we can cut that part out and, through the magic and beauty of editing, can have multiple people make our random conversations seem like one coherent one. But it also records our audio pretty nicely. So...
Lisa Woolfork 2:15
I'm so glad. I'm so glad. I just love all of this. And so I guess maybe we should introduce ourselves and think about why we are doing this. I'm Lisa Woolfork with Black Women Stitch. And I love the book, This Long Thread. I really believe that what Jen is bringing forward is so valuable. And so when the book first came out last year, we had a conversation and to talk about it a year later, just feels so timely. And this episode is going to be the start of my November episodes. And it's going to be all about supporting these amazing Black creatives who have these wonderful projects. You know, getting people thinking about buying things from Black women and from women of color more generally. And so hi, everybody, happy November. You should get your shopping lists ready because we know capitalism is horrible and dangerous. At the same time. It brings us some really beautiful things from wonderful people such as Jen Hewett. And so let's get started giving our money to the folks that make the world a great place, y'all, including Jen Hewett, and the Asian Sewing Collective and Black Women Stitch. I mean, I'm just saying if there's money to be had, there's four representatives here who could do some good things with it. So we look forward to hearing from you. I'm gonna turn it over to my co-host for today and our amazing, remarkable guests. So what do y'all have to say? Nicole, Ada, hey.
Nicole Angeline 3:39
Hi. Thank you so much for thinking about bringing us together, Lisa. I am so excited to be here. And Jen really enjoyed your book and the opportunity that we get to talk with you about it. I'm Nicole. I am the co-host and co-founder of the Asian Sewist Collective. I'm primarily a garment sewist, but I'm trying to dabble, like I'm working on a bag right now for that kind of stuff. I'm Filipina American. I was born in the United States. My parents immigrated from the Philippines. And I am just really excited to be here. And I also want to just like special shout-out to Lisa. It was so cool to meet you earlier this year. I was just fangirling and cheesing in person when you came to Chicago, and I cannot wait till the next time you come. Maybe we'll make shoes together.
Lisa Woolfork 4:19
Yes, that would be fun. I'd love it.
You didn't say anything about shoes.
Well, I mean, a whole shoe school, a school of shoemaking right around the corner kinda from where Nicole is. And I've been there twice. Once to see Bisa Butler's work and then make shoes, and then another time to do the live show at this conference at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. And then to make shoes. I feel like whenever you go to Chicago, you kind of got to make some shoes. So next time, next time you're in town Nicole will have to take you over there to make some shoes.
Ada Chen 4:52
Fun facts I didn't know about Chicago. I'm Ada. I'm also co-host, co-founder of the Asian Sewist Collective. I'm second-generation Taiwanese American now living in Denver, Colorado, which is the original territories of the Utes, Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples. This started out of like an Instagram DM conversation where we were talking about something completely different. And then you were like, what if we did this conversation? So reading the book, because we had just done an episode about the book. I think it was our season finale, technically, for season three of Asian Sewist Collective. And we were like, let's talk about this because it is topically relevant to most of our listeners. And it's an interesting book, and I happened to have gotten through most of it because I was flying back and forth to all of my friends' weddings, which highly recommend. It is definitely like a good book to take with you on a trip because you can stop through stories and then look people up when you're not on the airplane and trying not to pay United ten dollars for the internet. You can stop at your next half and then look it up from here on the crowd, and then continue from there. But all jokes aside, I really enjoyed the book. And we had a fun time. We basically did an episode—which if you haven't listened to it, you should—where we surveyed people who listen to the podcast, follow us on Instagram, and who are part of our podcast team, so part of the collective, to answer the same questions that Jen did in her survey originally, which, I don't know, that was pretty cool. We learned a bunch about a lot of different people and from different backgrounds who weren't all Asian as well. And so yeah, I got to learn a lot about other people's crafts, hobbies, and practices, which was not necessarily what I thought we were going to learn when we're going into the episode.
Lisa Woolfork 6:28
Thank you and Jen, you are the woman of the hour here. You are the reason for the season, as it were. Tell us a little bit about you for the folks who might live under a teeny tiny rock at the bottom of a sea and don't know who you are. So just let them know who you are, what you do, and about what brought this book into your imagination.
Jen Hewett 6:46
Well, so this is the perfect crossover event for me because I am both at least seventh-generation Black American and first-generation Filipina American. So Black and Asian. Right? This is the perfect event. So thank you.
Lisa Woolfork 7:00
This is what I was thinking,
Jen Hewett 7:01
But I am a printmaker by training, and I'm also a surface designer. I'm a hobbyist sewist. So I mainly do garment sewing, although I just finished my first quilt using a pattern that I improved myself. But it's real quilt made out of quarter-square triangles. I'm very proud of it. But I design a lot of things for the sewing industry. So I design primarily fabric, and I've been doing that now since two thousand eighteen. So I'm on my third or fourth fabric collection at this point. I designed quilting fabric long before I was ever a quilter. I have done a lot of textile art and didn't necessarily call myself a textile artist. I always say that I'm a printmaker first, and everything flows from that, but I'm owning it. I'm owning that I am a person who does and likes many, many things.
Lisa Woolfork 7:45
And so as an omni crafter, an omni artist, a multi hyphenate— sometimes that's the word I've heard recently, a multi hyphenate. I guess that means you do a lot of things. Why does printmaking come first? When you say it, it sounds like it makes sense that printmaking would come first, because that is how you make your imprint. Once you have your print down, it's permanent and not reversible. And so you have to stick with it. Is there something about the printmaking process that serves as a good anchor for your work?
Jen Hewett 8:14
So the story I like to tell is when I was probably six or seven, there was a convent down the street from where I grew up. And one of the nuns commissioned me to make greeting cards for her. And I think she paid me ten cents apiece. So my mom, my dad, the nun, Sister Philipa, they all thought that I was going to do ten different cards. But I did one card I really liked made out of construction paper and cut bits and pieces. And I thought I want to replicate this. I'm getting ten cents a card. Why would I do ten different ones when I have a perfectly good card here? She's not going to send them all to the same person. So nobody ever has to know. And so I presented this to her and she was tickled, as she would have said. She was an old-school nun, very tickled by this. And my mom just did not understand why I wouldn't have done ten different things. So that set me up to be a printmaker, because with printmaking, you do one thing and you do it over and over again, unlike being a painter who does a one of a time one thing. A printmaker is already set up operationally. It makes sense to do the same thing over and over again. Maybe to vary the color, maybe to vary the substrate or what you're printing on, but the image will remain at its core the same. So it took me twenty-five years to get to that point where I realized, oh, actually, I am a printmaker. I was seven. Twenty-five years later than that I was in my thirties. But when I talk about my textile design, or even my surface design, I have one image that I'm starting with and it might end up on wallpaper, it might end up on fabric, it might end up on clothing, it may end up on. I mean, I'm looking right now at my kitchen, it might end up on mugs. But it's that one core design that shifts and morphs depending on what you're putting it on.
Lisa Woolfork 9:53
I think that's so beautiful. And I'm not going to hog all the questions. I'm going to ask just one thing and then I'm going to turn it over. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about what type of faith or belief in oneself is required to be willing to make one's mark like that? Because I have one of your little tiny notebooks, and I tell you, when I travel around with it, I feel like you're with me. I feel like Jen has given me something that's gonna make my heart smile, that this little notebook with that little tiny flower that's just so ebullient—it just feels like something that has a kind of buoyancy to it. And it's really an illustration. And so I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit... Because it feels like what I hear you saying is, when you make a print, you have to know that whatever image you're going to put on there is going to go beyond your first and initial impression. It's going to be like you said, a mug, or maybe sheets, or maybe curtains or maybe wallpaper. How do you get to the point where you're saying, "This is what I'm going to create? This is what I've done. And now I know it's ready." Do you see what I'm asking? Like, it feels like it's harder to do than painting. It seems a little harder because it feels a little bit more permanent.
Jen Hewett 11:09
Oh, that's an interesting take on it. The nice thing about the work that I do is that it is replicable. And so it feels in many ways, low stakes, that I'm constantly putting things out there, and some things will stick and other things won't. And I think in my life, I come from a family of people where everything always matters. I don't know if Nicole, you can relate to this, I think this is very much a cultural thing. Like you want to hold on to ideas and work until it's just perfect. And then you put it out when it's perfect. And then you talk about how it's not as good as it could be. And growing up under that system, my mom is an amazing cook. And to this day, she will still talk about how bad her cooking is. I just didn't ever want it to be that grown up. Because I wanted to continue to put work out in the world. I believed that I had something to say and that what I have to say is maybe not necessarily important, but it's relevant and that it has an audience. And I can just keep putting it out there over and over again. And the more I say and do it, the less importance any one thing has that I can have a body of work instead of one piece of work. And I think that's also true of writing, like this belief that you actually have something to say. And let me tell you, there are a lot of people who believe they have something to say and they really don't. [laughs]
Lisa Woolfork 12:22
Oh, can I name some names? I know some white men. I know you're talking about white men. That's how we do on my podcast, y'all. I don't know how y'all do it over at the Asian Sewist Collective.
Ada Chen 12:29
It's like a disproportionately high number of them too.
Lisa Woolfork 12:32
Such a volume. Talk about epidemics.
Jen Hewett 12:35
Oh, yeah. And I went to an all-girls school for high school. All of us had things to say. We were just talking all over each other, riffing on ideas, and it was wonderful. And then I go off to a coed university, and I'm in this class. It's a small senior seminar. It was actually a sophomore seminar, and I was a freshman. And I was intimidated because there were boys in the class, and the boys would just talk over everybody. And they have really loud voices. So I wouldn't say anything. And we were assigned our first paper, and I wrote this paper, and I turned it in, and I got it back. And it had an A on it. And the professor, Robert Middlecop, who has since passed, he died last year at the wonderful age of I think he was 91. Wow, he wrote, "You have a fine mind. Come see me in my office hours." And so I went to office hours, and he said, "There is no reason for you not to talk in class—you clearly have ideas." And he started calling on me in class. And if the boys started interrupting me, it was like, "Nope, let her finish," which you know, was complete allyship. And this was like he was a white man of a certain generation and he just got it. And so I carried that with me.
Lisa Woolfork 13:39
I love it. I love it. Thank you so much. There is no reason. And I just want to say just really quick, I remember calling my mother in tears when I was in graduate school because I had gone to a women's college for undergraduate, and I didn't take your side that was like these men keep talking and I'm intimidated. I was resentful, and I was angry. And I was like, "Ma, there's these boys in class. They don't do the reading. They say I haven't done the reading. Here's my opinion." And I'm staying up. We had like five hundred pages a week, like it was intense. And I was reading and taking notes. And I had charts and all of this stuff from ideas before I could say something so I could be prepared. And instead a white man would show up and just be just yammering with opinions out of nowhere. And my mother was like, "Why is this girl calling me with such foolishness? Don't worry about these people. You are there to do your job, Lisa. You do your thing and don't worry about the rest." I was like, "Okay, but it's just not right, Ma. You just gotta see it to believe it. It's appalling." But yeah, thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna mute my mic now and see how do we have other amazing questions loading, so I'll turn them over to Nicole or Ada.
Nicole Angeline 14:45
I just want to jump in. You know, Jen, so much of what you just shared resonated with me partially because I grew up as a daughter of Philippine immigrants. I think that there is a lot of the perfectionism mindset. This, like, expectation of perfection. And the things that you were describing—the professor that was so important for you in recognizing that you had your own voice—as a human being, I am still growing into who you are, I like to think. I need Ada to tell me, "Nicole, what you have to say is valuable." I need my friends to say, "What are you talking about—the crooked hem? You look amazing." You know, I still need that as a woman who is well beyond high school and college years. But it's so wonderful to hear your story. And to see that for you. You have these folks. I have them too. They're coming. They're here. But I feel like I've just I don't know, growing into you. That's a bit weird. I'm sorry. That sounds very strange.
Jen Hewett 15:43
No, but I know what you mean. I enjoy there's an Instagram. And he's also a writer, but Instagram influencer, I can't remember his name, but his account is Advanced Style. And photos mostly women who are older who have a certain style, and they are out there with pink hair and crazy outfits. And just looking absolutely gorgeous because they're completely owning something. When I saw that, I thought that's how I want to get older, I want to get older in a way where I like don't give a fuck. I am doing the things that I want to do because I can. Because I deserve that. This is also something that happens, I'm maybe the oldest or, Lisa, we're around the same age.
Lisa Woolfork 16:23
I think I might be a teeny tiny bit older than you by a teeny tiny bit.
Jen Hewett 16:27
And this is definitely something that when I hit forty-five, I kind of became this person fully. It takes a while, it definitely takes a while. I didn't really start feeling this way until much therapy in my thirties. And then really having to control my employment, how I was earning my money because I went off and I started consulting. So I had to walk into things with confidence, even when I didn't feel that I was confident, and a lot of that faking it just really made it happen. Which is amazing. Because if you just say something with certain amount of confidence, people believe you. Not necessarily a good thing, but! [laughs]
Nicole Angeline 17:03
What's the saying? Like, walk around with the confidence of a mediocre white man and you'll get everything you want.
Jen Hewett 17:08
At the same time I want something better for myself. And I want to walk around...
Lisa Woolfork 17:11
Absolutely!
Jen Hewett 17:12
...with the confidence of a brilliant Black woman, you know?
Lisa Woolfork 17:15
That part, yes.
Nicole Angeline 17:16
Jen, I want to back up to something that you said a little bit earlier. And it sort of ties into the confidence thing. Something that I picked out when you were introducing yourself was you said something to the effect of I am now comfortable with calling myself a textile artist. And that is something that several guests on our podcasts sort of reckon with—not maybe necessarily calling themselves textile artists, but I know there was one episode where someone was reluctant to call herself an artist at all. And it's something that they had to grow into and realize about themselves and value about themselves. So I just kind of wonder the framing behind saying why only now do you consider yourself a textile artist when maybe in the past, if you were doing the same or similar activities, you didn't really see yourself that way?
Jen Hewett 17:57
I've always seen myself as an artist. That was not a hard identity for me to claim because that's who I've always been. I think the harder part for me was really leaning into the textile part because so much of it can be very exclusionary, like there's something about the textile art world that until fairly recently, and even still recently, there are the few outliers who are held up as paragons of what it means to be a woman of color who does this work. I didn't necessarily want to be lumped in with people that I couldn't relate to experience wise, work wise, that was hard for me. And it was really the process of writing the book and interviewing folks and reading their stories that I was really able to claim being a textile artist because I was speaking to people who I could relate to who were doing work that I could relate to who were calling themselves artists, textile artists. And so the book allowed me to call myself a textile artist. And in many ways I had to approach the book and the people that I interviewed and the people I surveyed as a textile artists in order to have credibility with them, because otherwise I was an outsider.
Nicole Angeline 19:01
Sure, that's definitely fair. And I love this embrace of this particular aspect of your identity. And there are definitely vignettes throughout the book where you sort of see that, where folks say, "I did not think that this craft was for me until I met XYZ." I'm thinking of the owner of the store Gather Here in Cambridge. I think her name is Virginia. So what Ada was saying about get off the plane and get on Instagram. I was like, Okay, get on Instagram. That's new people to meet.
Lisa Woolfork 19:31
You see I have all these tabs as well, Nicole, I'm the same. I was like, Okay, wait, this is more people to talk to. I have my book. It's like I'm back in grad school. I got all these tabs.
Ada Chen 19:39
I thought she was about to say like I was using it as a shopping guide.
Lisa Woolfork 19:43
But also maybe, maybe, Ada, maybe. Also, yeah.
Jen Hewett 19:46
We need to come to that point of you looking things up a little bit later because I have thoughts on that. But... [laughs] But sorry, Nicole or Ada, we were talking about Virginia.
Ada Chen 19:56
Nicole was talking about Virginia.
Nicole Angeline 19:57
I was just saying that something I think that she had said in her, I think it was an interview. Because in the book, there's like essays and interviews, I think it was an interview. And she had said that she wanted to open up a space, but she was a little bit hesitant because of the area that she was in. It was predominantly white. She didn't necessarily see herself as part of that community. But she went and did it anyway. And then folks from all over, she started to see herself in the community because other members of the community saw her. And so I thought that happened many, many times throughout the book. And it's something that I have felt too, I think. Maybe everyone on the call can relate. But that's one of the things that I really enjoyed. Because with almost every essay, there was something that I picked out that really just felt like a kindred sort of feeling. There's something even the one about the border crossings. I'm an immigration attorney by trade. And so like reading that story was just so powerful and interesting and wonderful to see these different facets of craft in our community. It's not really a question. I think it's just a comment, I don't know, nerding out, but, Ada, I'm sure you have lots of questions, too.
Ada Chen 20:58
So reading the interviews and not wanting to name names, there were a few interviewees, where they kind of flipped the script on you. And when you were asking them about how they kind of came to their craft, and how they formed their identity within their hobby or outside of it, they kind of turn it back to you and learn what about you? So I guess I'm curious how you felt about that process. And also, since those interviews, I'm assuming, were done a little bit of a while ago because of the editing and the publishing process, like have you kept in touch with anybody? And how has that relationship changed or evolved? Maybe, if any, over the past few years, especially last year since the book's been out?
Jen Hewett 21:36
That's a fantastic question. So I didn't mind when people would flip it back on me. In fact, I remember asking a question of somebody. I won't name names, either, but if you read the book, you know who I'm talking about. And she turned around and said, "That's an odd question. That's really general." And I thought, "You know what? You're right." And I don't mind because what I really wanted was to have a conversation with these folks instead of having it be me asking a list of questions and getting responses, which is one of the reasons that I actually conducted an interview via Zoom or on the phone, rather than sending a list of questions to people and asking them to write. The other reason is, well, a couple of reasons. Some people aren't very comfortable with writing, especially when you're working with folks who are ESL, and also like an hour of their time of me asking questions, I get to do all the work. I have to transcribe it, I have to proofread it, I have to do all of those things, I have to go back to them, rather than me sending them a list of questions, and it's going to take them four hours to do. But that's a long-winded answer. No, I really wanted to have that back and forth with people. And I didn't mind being challenged, because in many ways, I had set up this interview itself as a safe space for these things to happen.
Ada Chen 22:42
And have you kept in touch with anyone since then?
Jen Hewett 22:45
I've kept in touch with so many people! [laughs] It's actually been really late, not just people who I interviewed or who I featured, but also people who responded to the questions. And I will see a name like, they'll respond to my newsletter, and I'll see that name and realize, oh, that person completed the survey. That person was in such a such a Zoom call when we launched the book. I have actually yeah, I have kept in touch with quite a few people, probably almost everybody I interviewed. And definitely a lot of the people I profiled who completed the survey, and I completed almost full length of their survey. I've kept in touch with a lot of those folks, too.
Lisa Woolfork 23:23
That's amazing. I was tagging someone in the book. I was like, "Oh my gosh, you should check this out. You know about Jen Hewett? Check her out!" And they were like, "Oh, I'm in the book. I did an interview. I did a survey." And I'm like, wow, then this all feels great. You know, it feels great. It feels like I'm on the right path. And mostly more importantly, so is Jen. that this person that I was sure would really appreciate the book was actually in the book already. So yay.
Jen Hewett 23:47
Well, and somebody posted on Instagram that her mom had asked for my book for Mother's Day and then opened the package and went to the back and said, "By the way, I'm in this book." [laughter] "Thank you for this gift. Here I am." [laughs]
Lisa Woolfork 24:07
We all know that I'm the real gift being your child. Here we are. Look at me in the book. You're welcome, Mother, that I made you the mother you are.
Jen Hewett 24:15
Yep!
Ada Chen 24:16
I hope she framed it.
Jen Hewett 24:17
I'm sure. [laughs] Yeah one of the nicest things about the book has been the community that's popped up around it of people who were in the book, people who've read the book, and also a lot of fabric stores, quilt guilds have been doing book clubs. You all did something as well, Asian Sewist Collective. I mean, it's what I'd hoped would happen, but also I didn't want to have to put that much work into it. I have other things to do.
Nicole Angeline 24:45
You put plenty of work into it.
Lisa Woolfork 24:46
Exactly. You've done all the work already. I mean, you wrote the book, you researched the book, you proposed the book. There's beautiful illustrations. You have midwifed this book into existence. You don't have to follow it around for the rest of its life. Like, this is something that people can carry and love and support and honor you for now. So I think that you really have done a mighty work.
Jen Hewett 25:06
And the nice thing about having an audience of women of color who want to spread the word about the book is that they just kind of do it. There's like no hand-holding for me know, asking me favors. or letting me know. They just kind of do it, and then I'll get tagged in something. I'm like, "Hey, thanks for letting me know!" But it's very nice.
I'm just gonna shamelessly plug that when I find books like this one that are good, and I like them and I like to go back to them. Because not every book that you get you're gonna go back to, but this one's nice to kind of like go back and read some of the stories, like it's very digestible. Shamelessly buy a couple copies just to like hand out and have as my like regifting or gifting pile. I don't know if anyone else's moms had that. But my mom had a box of stuff. She would pre-buy them. And then if you had a birthday like, I'm not getting you a new present. I'm getting you have a gift from the box that I know (unclear). Yes, yes. So this is my like, good friends who do any sort of craft gift. I've got another book for like you having a baby, you can have "Go the F to Sleep." That's another. [laughter]
Lisa Woolfork 26:10
Books make great gifts. We know this.
Ada Chen 26:12
Just because I know this is coming out in November, and if you are procrastinating, get on it.
Lisa Woolfork 26:17
Say no more. Get this book. It's clear it's good. You have four amazing women on here right now who are telling you that it's good. So who are you gotta trust? Honestly, us. Trust us.
Ada Chen 26:27
Also random people on the internet who are like, you don't know.
Nicole Angeline 26:32
Exactly.
Lisa Woolfork 26:32
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But thing about the book I love is I think this started... It feels more like both an archive and a resource. And I think that that's what I got from you, Ada, saying that you can read part on the plane. And then when you got a chance to follow up, you can kind of look up these people's names. I mean, I definitely was looking through and like oh my gosh, I didn't know this particular part, or I knew who this person was, but I didn't know this particular slice of their story. Or I think the border crosser as well like her story—just about the fear of being a child and not being able to have that kind of full sense of being able to move well in your own body because of fears of things that are beyond you and still flourishing in such beautiful ways and creating such powerful work. And I'm so glad that you have that story there, Jen, because you have her tell her story in her voice. I can't imagine me ever knowing this otherwise. That story in particular seems one that how would I have known it if I had not gotten your book and read it as part of this larger collection of stories of us, of women of color and how we make connections through the power and inherent liberatory creativity that is in or can be in making. And I think that was really powerful. So I do return to that one, like just mindblowing.
Jen Hewett 28:41
You know, it's interesting, too, that you talk about Tanya, because that was the artist Tanya Aguiñiga is her last name. I hope I'm saying that correctly. Sorry, Tanya, if I'm not. When we did the interview, and I had to cut this out, she had been working on a project with the Children's Museum of San Diego. And a lot of it was about bodily autonomy for children, because she said children are picked up and moved to places without being asked. And so she was creating something where they could explore on their own without parental intervention. And it just clicked for me: That's completely related to her childhood of having to cross a border every single day twice a day in order to get an education in the U.S.
Nicole Angeline 28:41
Were there any other stories that you remember—you don't have to name names either that particularly resonated with you while you were writing the book like something that you deeply connected with one of
Jen Hewett 29:34
One of my favorite stories, I mean, they're all my favorite stories. So it's kind of hard to have favorite favorites, but Chi Nguyen's story. Her grandparents were in Vietnam, and her grandfather went off to the north to fight and left his wife, Chi's grandmother, in the south and she was the second wife and his family didn't really like her. So she decided she was going to go back. She was going to go up north to find her husband to be with him. And he had never told her where he was, but she had this intuition. And she was in this village that she had heard that some of the soldiers were in. And she looked up, and she saw the boxers that she had sewn him hanging on the line. [laughs] And she asked, well, you know, my husband's here and they said, "No, no, you're mistaken." And she said, "I sewed those...that underwear for him. His name is in it, he is here." So they were reunited, because she recognized the boxers that she had sewn for him. And it was this amazing love story where he would comb her hair, and she had waist-length hair, and he would wash and comb it because she couldn't do it on her own. And then Chi's work involved weaving with hair, because it was so intrinsic to her grandparents' story to their identity, to her identity, as a weaver, that something can come full circle like that. That really touches me, because I think a lot of us have those stories that maybe we didn't even know. I certainly am learning things from my mom now and from my cousin about my grandmother on my dad's side. Ways that actually click and I'm connected to without ever having really known the story. And I think all of us have elders, they will tell us the stories they want to tell us. And then one day, some stories never heard will come out. And you're like, that is our origin story. This is the story you're holding out on and you've been keeping this for me. And suddenly everything makes sense. And she actually had that story. Like she knew her origin story that this is a story that was told in her family and that was passed down to her and that she has full circle like, woven into work.
Nicole Angeline 31:37
That's really powerful, very sweet. And also, anyone listening, if you're lucky enough to still have your grandparents, ask those questions. I just lost my grandpa earlier this year. So like you, Jen, talking about that makes me a little bit emotional. I did get to ask questions, but it was never enough. So don't hold out on your grandparents. Ask them all the questions, even if they're annoyed.
Lisa Woolfork 31:56
And record them. Record them on video or audio as well so you can have some stuff in their voices. That's something I wish I had done a bit more of, especially because my grandmother was born in nineteen thirteen, which is the same year that Harriet Tubman died. So the history that we live...when you were saying, Jen, about like, there's these stories that they don't tell us. But there's also when you hear the story, like you describe it feels like it was waiting for you, and that it was activated in your own body and your own knowledge and experience once it was told to you. So it's just all those inner connections, I think, are really powerful to think about what we have in our own consciousness that come from our parents, our families, all of these inputs from community that might just be like they're loosey goosey until you realize that other people have them too. And then that is how we make those connections. I just think it's just really a beautiful illustration of a largely beautiful work overall. So that's really quite touching.
Ada Chen 32:57
I was gonna say I have a sad story to add to that. It's happy. It's related to the book though. When I was reading the book for the first time, I think, I came across a story from—I just looked it up—is it Chaw-nee?
Nicole Angeline 33:08
Chawne.
Ada Chen 33:08
Who is at C-A-U-C-H-Y Complete on Instagram, who's a quilter. I am not a quilter. [laughs] But they made quilts out of their ties or their dad's ties. And I when my dad passed away, he wore ties like way back in the early nineties, I guess, eighties? Ties were like fat, not like the skinny ones you have now. They were like, fat.
Lisa Woolfork 33:32
Index card–sized ties.
Ada Chen 33:34
Yeah, yeah.
Lisa Woolfork 33:35
They were sizable.
Ada Chen 33:35
They were large. And I don't know why he had like, kept them around for so long. But we were cleaning out mid COVID, we had to clean stuff out, couldn't really dilly dally on stuff. And so we were like, "Okay, we're gonna keep some of these ties." And so I kept a few of them. And I cut them in half. So my sister got—I made her scrunchies. So we each had a half of a tie scrunchie. And so we would have we had the butt ends and then the short skinny ends. So we got like half. We split like how many butt ends she got. She got only half ends. And I just remember reading about the dead dad tie quilt being like, man, that was probably a better idea. But hey, now I have scrunchies and now I know somebody else has also come across their dead dad's ties. And like
Lisa Woolfork 34:17
Absolutely, yes.
Ada Chen 34:18
Don't worry. I also saved like some pretty bad corduroys that I think are from Costco. The man loved Costco. [laughs]
Jen Hewett 34:26
Oh my gosh, I know I get presents from my mom every year now that's some kind of Costco clothing, and I kind of love it because it's a heavy-duty sweatshirt or it's a puffer coat. It's clear that Mom went to Costco right before Christmas, realized she hadn't gotten me a gift, and she was like, "Yeah, she needs a puffer coat."
Lisa Woolfork 34:42
"It's cold, it's cold in upstate New York, and Jen won't go to Costco on her own. She'll never know where this came from." I'm sure it's very lovely. I wanted to ask: So one year later, the book has had his chance to grow and mature and has had such a wide influence. I mean, I've been reading some of the reviews and I always think of those as little tiny indicators of larger messages. And the overall consensus seems to be celebratory gratitude, if I could put it into two words. Like folks who are celebrating that this book exists, and that women of color are having their voices centered and amplified and talking to a variety of people. And then the gratitude, which extends toward you for being the person that curated all this and pulled this together. But also the gratitude to be able to see oneself reflected when the mainstream messages are that we are invisible or marginal or in the background. And so I just wondered do those two things do you find those often intention, the responses to your work that way?
Jen Hewett 35:51
The interesting thing for me the response to my work.... So I wanted it to be representative, not necessarily of everybody, because that's impossible, but to include people who are not included. So that to me was really true representation. And to have people's words and stories focused on rather than photos of them or their work was also really important to me. And there definitely has been a lot of tension in terms of response to the book between a desire to see pictures and people who are grateful and willing to sit down with the stories. That breaks down along racial lines. And I actually find this completely fascinating. And I've wanted to talk to people about it.
Lisa Woolfork 36:37
Talk to us! We are excited! We want to know!
Jen Hewett 36:40
It is overwhelmingly white women who wish there were pictures. And I really want to understand this. At the same time, my primary audience was women, people of color. If my primary audience is like, I'm so glad to read the stories, I'm so glad to sit with this than that, then it means that I've done the work that I set out to do and that I feel like I've given to a community, right? To a very large community. This is the work that I've done for them. You know how when you get like ninety-nine fantastic comments on a post on Instagram and you get one negative one, and you keep coming back to that negative one. Yeah, this is the thing I keep coming back to like, why does this criticism exist?
Nicole Angeline 37:16
I have thoughts.
Lisa Woolfork 37:17
I do, too.
Jen Hewett 37:18
I also have thoughts, but not a lot of them just aren't very kind or generous.
Nicole Angeline 37:22
So I would love to hear—I mean mine weren't about to be. [laughter]
Lisa Woolfork 37:27
Again, I don't know how the Asian Sewist Collective rolls, but like on Black Women Stitch, we don't have to be kind to racists. So we don't tend to be kind to shenanigans. And I'm sure y'all not either. So honestly, just like with the book, if we don't say it, who will? This is why we are here.
Nicole Angeline 37:42
Right.
Lisa Woolfork 37:43
So I want to hear what Nicole thinks, because I'm really curious.
Nicole Angeline 37:46
My first reaction when you said that was they don't actually want to hear our stories. They want to get an Instagram book.
Lisa Woolfork 37:54
Ding, ding, ding, ding!
Nicole Angeline 37:55
And I'm like, well, then you missed the entire point of the book, and this is not for you. Go to Instagram. I keep going back to Tanya. Someone said like, we wouldn't know that story unless you read the book. So in the same way that craft is so important to us, we are also more than that. To me, this idea that we aren't allowed to be more than the product of our work. And so if you want pictures, and you don't want to read the story, this book is not for you. And it's a reflection of who you are, and in the way that you see women of color and craft. And so that was my instant thought I was like, because I don't want to hear from us. They just want to look at pretty things, they don't really want to know more about us. And I know like for Ada, this is why you wanted to start the podcast, you know, like...
Ada Chen 38:35
They want a coffee table book. They want that nice book with the shelves and pretty pictures, and they'll just put on the coffee table. And they'll look at it once, they bought it to support. And then I'm using air quotes here, "they bought it to support" and it's like sitting on their table and they'll never open it again. And it just shows people when they come over to their house like "Oh, they're cool. They must be an ally. They have the book." But that doesn't really count. That doesn't count as work being done if you've just done the thing and not actually read the stories and understood it.
Lisa Woolfork 39:03
I agree with both. My feelings are very similar. And I think my direction was actually taking it from Black Studies. There's this famous book called "The Black Aesthetic," and it was written like in 1973. And one of the proponents of this art movement was Hoyt Fuller, and they were doing a lot of Black arts at the time to just elevate and amplify because as, what we now know, things were like a lot worse fifty years ago. One of the things that Fuller said was this. He said, "The facts of Negro life accuse white people. The facts of Negro life accuse white people." And he was doing this in the context of some poetry, and they were going to ban this Langston Hughes poem because they thought "I, Too, Sing America" was too radical to have in a classroom to talk about oppression in nineteen seventy-three, seven years after the voting right. I mean, it was just appalling. But I think it's a little bit of that or as my mother would say "a hit dog will holler." And this idea that in order to read the book, you have to sit with this question that we hear a lot, which is, I want craft to be my happy place. I want sewing to be my happy place. I want blank to be my happy place. And when we hear that coming from a white point of view, it usually means I don't want anything to distract from my consumption of this. And your experience is a distraction from my happiness. And it feels like this book, it will make absolute sense that if there were more pictures, I could get more into it. But instead, I really have to sit down and look at the facts of people's lives. I think it was Vanessa Vargas when she was at an event, and someone—the Airbnb thought her husband was some kind of burglar or going to a conference—I have heard so many stories, from my perspective, from Black women going to conferences and being like called out to see if they were in the right place, even though they were there with a badge on. The idea that somehow... This one woman I know she was like, they want to her ID. She had a bad job, but they wanted to see her like driver's license before she could come into the exhibition hall of an event. And all of this is about space and belonging, ownership. And at the end of the day, it comes down to power. And what the book I think is doing it consolidates a lot of our stories into power. And that I think is a little uncomfortable for folks who don't want to see us at all. I don't know, but, Jen, what do you think? We have our theories. You are the one who knows best.
Jen Hewett 41:31
So when the book first came out, I was doing a Zoom event, and somebody had asked me, you wrote this book, partly in response to some events in twenty eighteen. You all remember what was happening in the knitting community in twenty eighteen. I address it in the first chapter of my book, or the introduction of the book. And this was twenty twenty. And she said, "So we gotten better since then?" And I was like, well, it's been two years. And I told her, I said, "So what has gotten better is visual representation." But also, that is the easiest thing to do. You hire a few models of color, or you highlight crafters of color on your Instagram, or you do a partnership with someone and you use their image, you use their face. That is really easy to do, and that the industry hadn't been doing it for as long as they did when it is super easy to do is just an indictment. I felt like this request for photos in the book is just a continuation of this like, easiest thing to do, which is to look at people, pictures of people, and up their work. And there are many reasons that this book was all text and not a lush coffee table book. One of them was cost. Let's be honest, it's really, really expensive to photograph and to produce a book like that. The other was space. Because once you have photos, you can only have half as much space for stories, and narratively, the photos and the stories are going to have to go together. So I mean, Lisa, you're a professor of English literature, you know this. Everything has to cohere. And so if I've got photos of someone's pretty work, and they actually have a devastating early life story, how do you necessarily manage those things? So Tanya, for example, her work is directly related to that. Tanya is an acclaimed artist that does really high-concept, fine artwork, but then we also have people who this is their hobby. And maybe they're not necessarily at a level or their craft is about comfort and joy. And it's not about their life story. How do you marry those two things within the context? Like, one has to give way to the other. And so that was really important to me, too. And then the other thing was that we're in such a visual culture right now. And when I look at Instagram, everything is given equal weight, because it's all square, you scroll through it. So you can see—and my friend Emily McDowell wrote this really fantastic newsletter about this—but you will like scroll through and you'll see like a pretty photo somebody's living room. You'll see someone wearing some dress for sponcon. You'll see a post about immigrants being detained at the border, then you'll see a recipe for something. And then another...a Black man has been killed. And all of these things are given equal weight, because visually, they're all the same. Nobody's really making you know, an editorial decision here for you. But at the same time, we're not media literate enough to sit down, and most of us are to parse this out, like really think about it, especially when you're doom scrolling at nine o'clock at night. Anyway, what I wanted to do was remove the visual so that you actually have to sit with the comment. You had to sit with the cat, right? The picture was done. People of color, they're excited to read the story. These are interesting stories. A lot of people think I have nothing to share. Windy Chien emailed me after the fact—I'm sure she's fine with this. And she said, "You know, I think of myself as an Asian American artist. My work isn't really about race. I didn't know how you were going to weave that into the book." And she said, "At the end of the day. The amazing thing about the book was that it was just women of color allowed to be, but feels revolutionary." That's what I set out to do. We were just going to tell our stories, but once you throw the visuals in, you've got people judging based on how they look, how people look, whether or not the work resonates with them, whether or not the work is technically adept as they would want it to be. That there were all these other judgments that get thrown in when you've got a photo and when you have to sit with the words, it's a totally different experience of it. Now, again, I'm getting worked up about the one percent of comments, the one comment out of the ninety-nine. But I just found like, this was a really fascinating reaction from folks who are not my primary audience.
Lisa Woolfork 45:30
I was just gonna say that what I appreciate is also you identifying the idea of who a primary audience is, and what I really love about what you're saying is that you chose us and what you see, I think, is us choosing you back. And that is what I value so much about your work because it can sometimes not be easy to make this investment if you are in a profession. And some folks do get to your level and are willing to take risks because they think that this is important, and other folks might not. And so I tend to land on the gratitude side, I honestly don't care if white women want more pictures. There's pictures to be seen elsewhere, go look at pictures elsewhere. Instagram has pictures. And because you are a hundred percent right, when we look at images, everything becomes content. And that's why I think the term content is so dangerous, because it's reductionist, and it just turns something like a beautiful picture of a bee sleeping under a flower to a news article about polluting, versus somebody actually being murdered on screen or being harassed or it's like we are bombarded with things that they demand us to consume. And there is no impulse to digest, just throw it, throw it, throw it, but there's never any time to kind of pause, and to look and to discern. Reading requires pause. And maybe some folks feel like a little resentment, like, wait a minute, I have to sit down and read these stories now? There's no easier way to do this? Is there not like a companion short film of everybody that I might be able to look at instead? Like, I don't know, I just keep thinking it's about currying attention and who is worthy of sustained attention. And you have proven and reminded us that we ourselves are worthy of that type of sustained attention. That we can pay attention to the things that sustain us. And we can reciprocate that by working and acting in and through community.
Jen Hewett 47:29
And in many ways, and thank you for that, Lisa. In many ways, writing this book didn't feel like a risk because I had this really strong sense that the community would have my back, but that I had to do everybody's stories justice in order for people to have my back, right? So it was this tension of, okay, I can write the book I want to write and people will have my back as long as I tell their stories with love and respect. And hopefully the love and respect is what comes through.
Lisa Woolfork 47:57
Yes, I would say yes.
Jen Hewett 48:00
Well, then my work is done. [laughs]
Ada Chen 48:03
Well, because my next question is going to be like what is next? What can we expect from you? What should we watch out for? What should we support?
Jen Hewett 48:09
I have so many things that are going on to summer is always slow for those of us who make things for a living. And so I had this moment where I was like, oh, maybe this is the year I have to stop making work, and I have to go out and get a regular job. I do this every year, by the way. I also had a moment of Asian mother validation, which I will share in a second, because that's a big deal. But then work started picking up again, all of a sudden, and I was like, oh, I have a lot of projects. So I have some exciting licensing things coming out next year, which I can't really talk about yet. I am doing another fabric collection. It is at the mill for strike offs right now. So there will be something coming out I think in the spring to be in shops next October. And then my next fabric collection, by the time this is released, the fabric collection—knock on wood—should be in stores at that point too. And then I said I was done writing books. And the process of having a garden has made me think that I want to write a book around women and their gardens. But I don't know. I have to let that sit in my head for a little bit. Because if I tell my agent she does—hi, Kate! Kate does listen to the most of my podcast interviews. So as soon as she hears—
Lisa Woolfork 49:14
Hi, Kate, please check on her and the book. It's gonna be really great. Give her some encouragement and support, a good advance, you know, make it work.
Ada Chen 49:21
We'll buy the book. You've already got three people here.
Jen Hewett 49:23
Oh my god. This one probably would need photos. But I would love to do that. I think I just need to hype myself up and think it through enough and do some reading and do some research to figure out if this is even a project I want to tackle or if it's going to take me away from the core work that I do. And maybe that's not a bad thing. So my bit of Asian mother approval was... So my mom is still convinced that I'm not making a living and that I'm somehow like not able to support myself. So she'll I tell my dad...
Lisa Woolfork 49:53
You have a lovely house, beautiful furnishings, you have a lovely pet who seems very healthy. I mean, just from looking on Instagram. it's not like you have a tin cup and you're like, "Help me buy some paint brushes." Like...
Nicole Angeline 50:04
Lisa, it's not enough. It's not enough.
Jen Hewett 50:06
It's not enough. And also—
Nicole Angeline 50:07
It's never enough.
Lisa Woolfork 50:08
Okay, I have a Black mama. And so I know it's different. So I'm gonna let y'all go ahead. I'm gonna listen and sit this one out.
Jen Hewett 50:14
Well, and also she's also not on social, so she has no clue, right? My dad said, "Well, we got your last newsletter." Also my parents read my newsletter, and when I talked to my dad, he wants to talk about the things that are in my newsletter, like comfortable, Dad! It's in the newsletter, we don't talk about that on the phone. But he said, "So we'd got your most-recent newsletter, and I thought, let me check out your store. I haven't looked at your store for a while. So your mother came over and we were looking at your store. And then we clicked over to your website, and your mother saw all the work that you've done and all the things that you're selling. And she said, Oh, I think she's going to be okay." [laughs]
Lisa Woolfork 50:52
Wow.
It's a big deal.
Jen Hewett 50:54
It's a huge deal, right? And I told my dad that every time Mom says "Should we send her money?" he should just say yes. I won't say no to... [laughter]
Nicole Angeline 51:03
It's not about need.
Jen Hewett 51:09
Twenty dollars on a card, I'm happy. I'm all for that. So...
Lisa Woolfork 51:12
You'd use it for something, right? I mean.
Jen Hewett 51:12
So, yeah, that felt like a big deal. Also, my dad doesn't read much. I think my dad has a little bit of dyslexia, and he's had it his entire life. So he's not a huge reader. So he did read the book. He will be the first one to buy an audiobook if it ever happens. For various reasons, it's a very complex book to make into an audiobook. But my mom loves the book. And sometimes she'll read the same chapter over and over and over again. So she said, "You know all these very interesting people." And I thought, well, you're actually also really interesting, too. You just won't let me interview you. Why are you asking me that question? So right, Nicole, Ada? You know.
Nicole Angeline 51:49
That's really sweet. Is she proud of you?
Ada Chen 51:52
Just she won't say it with those words.
Jen Hewett 51:54
No, yeah. It's not in their vocabulary, but like they show it.
Lisa Woolfork 51:58
Oh, I love it. That's like the best validation ever. This kind of like you are golden right now, right? You got the two thumbs up. She's seen the website. She knows you're solid.
Jen Hewett 52:08
We're good. I'm gonna carry this with me until Christmas. And then we'll see what goes from there.
Lisa Woolfork 52:15
Jen, I am again, so thankful for you talking with us today. I'm really excited to think about what you do next. I can't wait. I really love that I know people that have fancy projects that can't tell other people about. You know, I'm like, I know people who have NDAs. I would love to have one about something but not criminal. But like something exciting that brings you money. That's the kind of NDA I want to get with. I can do it. I love it. Jen, I'm so grateful to you. And I'm also grateful to Nicole and Ada for this wonderful conversation. Thank you for including me. Do you have anything you want to say or do to wrap up? Like what do you think?
Ada Chen 52:49
I mean, thank you, thank you all for being here spending a lovely Sunday afternoon with us. By the time this comes out, it'll be in like two months, so we'll no longer be warm where it is for all of us.
Nicole Angeline 52:59
I don't know about that for me. Chicago weather is weird.
Ada Chen 53:04
Global warming. We've got bigger issues. But ya know, it's been lovely to chat with everyone. And I'm so grateful that we got to spend this time together and that this came together and we made it happen. Go, team. That's all I want to say.
Nicole Angeline 53:15
Yeah, just echoing the same sentiment. I think it was a really great idea. Lisa, keep 'em coming. You've always got great ideas. And I feel so grateful that you invited us into the space. And, Jen, it's been really great to chat with you. I think by the time that this episode does come out, Ada, are we going to be releasing season four, question mark?
Ada Chen 53:32
Theoretically, yes.
Nicole Angeline 53:33
In theory, yeah. It's all very what we can manage. But it's been really great to spend time with you all today.
Lisa Woolfork 53:40
Wonderful. Jen, do you have one last thing you want to leave us with?What we do on my show, we ask people what advice you would give someone to help them get their stitch together. Given this experience on the one-year birthday of This Long Thread, what kind of advice do you have for the listeners of the Asian Sewist Collective and Black Women Stitch to help us get our stitch together?
Jen Hewett 54:00
So I will say what Professor Middlecop told me which is: What you say is worthy of being said. So put that thing out into the world.
Lisa Woolfork 54:09
Thank you. I receive it. Thank you.
You've been listening to Stitch Please, the official podcast of Black Women Stitch, the sewing group where Black lives matter. We appreciate you joining us this week and every week for stories that center Black women, girls, and femmes in sewing. We invite you to join the Black Women Stitch Patreon community with giving levels beginning at five dollars a month. Your contributions help us bring the Stitch Please podcast to you every week. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your support, and come back next week, and we'll help you get your stitch together.