The Creativity Project Week #31: Sara Trail of Social Justice Sewing Academy

Sara Trail is a successful author, sewing teacher, and pattern and fabric designer.  She found her calling at a young age, starting with learning to sew at the age of 4.  At the age of 13, she wrote Sew with Sara, a book that teaches teens and tweens how to sew clothes and accessories for fun and profit. At 15, she starred in a nationally published DVD, Cool Stuff to Sew with Sara.  She then designed two fabric collections, Folkheart and Biology 101, and a pattern collection with Simplicity, “Designed with Love by Sara.” While attending UC Berkeley, Sara created a quilt in memory of Trayvon Martin, and from there, her love for sewing and her passion for social justice became intertwined. After graduating from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, she founded the Social Justice Sewing Academy (SJSA) to be a platform where youth create art that engages and educates communities. Through quiltmaking, the organization empowers youth to become advocates for social change, while at the same time opening the door for dialogue and action within the wider quilting community. A unique part of the program intentionally bridges generational, racial, and socioeconomic divides by sending youth art blocks to hundreds of embroiderers across the world. As a result, the issues facing SJSA’s young artists are brought into the households of people who may not have faced the same adversity or had similar experiences, with the hope of sparking dialogue and action. Quilts created by the SJSA program have been exhibited across the country at quilt shows, museums, universities and special events, bringing these young artists’ work to an audience they traditionally would not have had access to. [Ed. Note: the answers below are written by Sara in collaboration with the SJSA Team.]

How would you describe SJSA’s quilting style/aesthetic ?

Sara/SJSA:   direct

collaborative

authentic

honest

edgy

raw.

SJSA’s quilting style and aesthetic is not duplicable because every quilt is one-of-a-kind. We design quilts as a vehicle to shatter the status quo and we break from traditional quilting methods because we repeat a community quilting process rather than repeating patterns. Our purpose is to elevate and to empower youth and young people of color to creatively express their concerns, thoughts, and beliefs and to insert them into spaces where their voices are often absent. Our process is as follows:

1. We hold a workshop with youth and young people where they design a quilt square that individually represents something they care about.
2. The quilt square is mailed to one of over 600 SJSA embroidery volunteers across the world to be hand embroidered and to dually spark conversation in those households around the issues represented in the quilt square.
3. The quilt squares are returned via mail and an SJSA volunteer pieces the quilt top together consisting of 20 unique blocks with a variety of social justice issues.
4. The quilt top is then given to our long-arm quilter and artist, Nancy Williams, who designs individualized stitching that elevates and enhances each unique quilt square.
5. The finished quilts are shown across the United States in quilt shows, museums, universities, and special events – places where marginalized youth of color rarely gain access to, much less are featured, as artists.

How would you describe the creative environment in your home as a child?

Sara: Supportive, exploratory, encouraging. My two loving parents exposed me to every form of art that I wanted to explore. As a child, I tried everything from beading, to pottery, and to glass blowing — sewing ended up being my favorite. I can’t count the hundreds of hours my dad has spent in a fabric store or the number of quilt shows my mom has taken me to. Their support is unparalleled, and they are the reason I was able to become an entrepreneur at the age of 12.

Do you consider yourself a “quilter”, an artist, or some combination of both?

Sara: I would consider myself an artivist (art + activist). At this point, I only create art that brings about social or political dialogue and visibility to important issues that matter to me.

How would you define “making with intention”?

Sara/SJSA: Merriam-Webster defines “intention” in 3 ways, which illuminate what grounds our process of making social justice art: (1) a determination to act in a certain way, (2) what one intends to do or bring about, (3) a process or manner of healing incised wounds. At SJSA we are committed to acting and to making decisions in a manner that brings visibility to social justice issues of our time so that critical conversations lead to action. Our hope and our intention are to bring about change through the process of allowing the often hidden and deeply personal wounds of our artists to have a spotlight and a national stage as an act of radical healing. “Making with intention” means sending a message that is often silenced through the art medium of quilting, and inserting these pieces into spaces our young people of color are denied entry to as contributors.

Do you think that having a craft makes us more compassionate? If so, then how?

Sara/SJSA: I think that being connected to the act of creation and crafting something out of other materials, places one firmly in a world where actions make something- they make a difference. You want something beautiful – you make it. This metaphor extends itself to the world and humanity as a whole – we can make the world a better place if we all are able to see that we have a hand in creating the world we live in. Being creative through making social justice quilts, or any other sort of art, not only teaches us compassion, but makes us more compassionate. It’s a loop of connection – we need to be helping others. We give to ourselves by giving to others. In a world that seems like it’s gone mad, (or perhaps it’s always been mad), crafting with compassion gives us a way to reconcile what we see happening around us with what we want to see happening. And now we’ve circled back. To INTENTION. It’s all connected. We’re all connected. We want to teach youth and others this knowledge. We want to put our passion and compassion into the world. I would say that using quilting as our common language makes us, and our youth messages, understood by a broader audience. Quilting is one of only a few crafts that are collaborative in nature –  if we extrapolate collaborative to compassionate – then, yes, it absolutely does.

What is the support system you have in place for creating your work?

Sara/SJSA: SJSA is a collective art community that begins with the concerns, voice, and art of the participating youth. A worldwide community of embroidery artists, local quilt piecing volunteers, and the amazing long arm artist, Nancy Williams, support this effort.

What does it mean to SJSA to work in a traditionally domestic medium that historically has been regarded as predominately female (aka “women’s work”)?

Sara/SJSA: Quilting was and is a predominantly (though not exclusively) female medium–but saying that it’s “women’s work” can erase the multitude of identities and intersections within our community. Quilters can come from so many different backgrounds. They can be Indigenous, queer, incarcerated, youth, men, Black, undocumented, trans*, and so much more if access to quilting was broadened to more intersections of people’s identities. It is an accurate critique that the quilt community lacks diversity. The quilting community replicates the same systems of inclusion (or exclusion), power, and decision-making as our nation. When an entire room of decision-makers, quilt guilds, or communities are homogenous, the space replicates systems of privilege and oppression because the voices that lead to diverse perspectives, broadening of understanding and empathy, and differing experiences are silenced and most likely absent. SJSA’s work is so meaningful to me because we invite everyone to the table, and create space in the quilt community for underrepresented young people and diversity of identities to experience the joy we all know in quilting.

How do you see your current work in the context of quilting history?

Sara/SJSA: SJSA is an important part of the long tradition of political quiltmaking. We give a voice to people who may have never used creativity to express themselves or to agitate for change. SJSA changes young people’s perceptions of quilting with every workshop, and encourages young people to be enthusiastic about textile art and quilts. Training, resources, free time, and being able to see yourself reflected in a community are some of the biggest barriers to starting any new hobby or appreciating any art form. SJSA provides all of that in its workshops. I hope that in the future, we will see an even more diverse quilting community, and that we will see talented artists who say they were inspired to become dedicated quilters because of SJSA workshops.

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Thank you, Sara!  You have created an amazing organization and are such an inspiration! For more about Sara and the mission of the Social Justice Sewing Academy, visit their website, or connect with them on Instagram and Facebook. To get involved with SJSA, click here to become an embroidery volunteer, to make a donation, or host a workshop. Would you like to be featured in The Creativity Project? Reach out! I’d love to hear from you! Contact me. Want to participate, but not necessarily be featured? You can do that! Click here to take the survey! The Creativity Project can be found on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter or Bloglovin’. Or check back here every Friday of 2018! SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave