A Textile Revolutionary: Commanding The Truce With Sonya Clark
With one thread at a time Sonya Clark sparked a revolution!
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Now, onto Sonya…
Grab your favorite bevs and sword pens, and let’s dive in!
“Objects have personal and cultural meaning because they absorb our stories and reflect our humanity back to us. My stories, your stories, our stories are held in the object”
-Sonya Clark
Who is Sonya Clark?
A fiber queen brimming with texture and movement with every stitch of her fingers!
A thread witch who can weave, unravel, and braid her way into time?
An Afro-Caribbean woman whose obsession with leveling injustice breathes in every morsel of her work.
Sonya is this and more but as with all creatives her work, passion, and artistry is hard to boil down in one phrase.
I first discovered Sonya Clark when I visited her exhibit ‘We Are Each Other’ at the High Museum. The exhibit was exquisite.
I journeyed through stars, weaved through patches of time, and sealed my hopes, and cares in Beaded Prayers.
I wrote about the power behind viewing this work and many more in the newsletter below.
Another experience of hers that was richly rewarding to me was her exhibit work Unraveling.
After a historical fact catches Sonya by surprise she does what any artist would do which is to take that knowledge, process it, and share it through art.
Sonya Clark Origins and Previous Work
“Many of my family members taught me the value of a well-told story and so it is that I value the stories held in objects.”
Sonya Clark is an Afro-Caribbean American artist who hails out of Washington, DC and credits her love and introduction to art to her family.
“Many of my family members taught me the value of a well-told story and so it is that I value the stories held in objects.”
After graduating college, she made her first set of Afro-Abe artworks when President Barack Obama began his presidential campaign.
What I deeply admire about Sonya is her passion and dedication to uncovering history and inviting others to join her. One of these exemplary works is The Hair Care Craft project.
Sonya partners with several hairstylists to braid her hair in different woven styles representing the art and prowess that embodies a black woman’s head. By inviting others to join with her in weaving, threading, and braiding Sonya crafted a project that is living, designing, and connective in the same.
Weaving and threading are common themes in the artwork of Sonya Clark. When Clark encourages others to join her in unraveling the toxic symbolic remains of the South’s history, it creates a ripple effect unlike any other.
Sonya Clarks Unravels The Truce - The Real Meaning Behind The Confederate Flag Surrender
“I believe cloth is language.”
As a black woman growing up in the South, I’ve been confronted with seeing the Confederate flag more times than I can count.
Admittedly, I didn’t understand its full meaning until much later in life yet I felt its effects everywhere I went. The brash flag bold in its colors still greets visitors as they drive into southern states today.
But, thanks to Sonya I learned about the Truce Flag, a seemingly small tea towel the Confederates waved in surrender.
It was, as I described earlier, literally a dishcloth, a tea towel that was woven in Richmond, Virginia. Well, I lived there in total for about 12 years and this dishcloth got repurposed as a truce flag because of its color, because it's white and if you know anything about a truce flag, you know that it's white.
I was shocked on my butt when I learned this staggering fact. How did a tea towel symbolize an incredible part of history get erased in the highest form?
Well, Sonya has something to do about that! She levels out the popularity of the Confederate flag by reconfiguring the tea towel in a large show of resilience, and power.
Sonya’s Truce Flag spans a hundred times over and lays on a large wooden platform to carry its weight.
If that isn’t enough Sonya predates this significant act when in 2015 she set out to Unravel the Confederate flag entirely.
Never has ‘Don’t F With My Sis’ been more apt!
Unraveling Bonds of The Past With Sonya Clark
“The Unraveling experience left me completely floored.”
Before me stood the Confederate flag hanging feet high above the ground and stretched wide for all to see. Yet, instead of it hanging proud and flying high its bottom was fringed and unsecured.
I couldn’t quite describe the feeling of what I was seeing.
I only knew that I was witnessing something great, something live, and revolutionary in the practice.
Based on its divisive history one would think unraveling the Confederate flag would be a celebratory one. But, not for Sonya. She invites others to join in unraveling the flag but carefully and reflect on their actions.
Sonya sees the Unraveling series as a sign of healing, learning, and grappling with difficult parts of the South’s past.
I too see it as a performance that confronts a dark part of our history and changing views in racial politics much more impactful.
While surveying unraveled bits of the Confederate flag and the enlarged Truce flag I felt a sense of accomplishment and knowing that we can rectify our broken past together.
Sonya’s Impacting Legacy
“Unless you study textiles, you don’t understand that much about them.”
What most amazed me about Sonya and the rest of her works is her approach to textiles and her ability to show history in them.
I’m amazed by any faction of history I don’t know, and I love how Sonya reveals the power of something as simple as cloth, textiles, beading, and weaving hold.
“Unless you study textiles, you don’t understand that much about them. They are always touching our bodies, they absorb how we smell, they keep us warm, they keep us cool–but most people don’t even know how cloth is made.”
-Sonya Clark
Sonya's approach to her artistry reminds me of Dave of the Potter who also took the ordinary and imbued it with power, community, history, art, and magic that still lives.
Sonya takes great care in making sure her works are endeavored with rich history, concrete visuals, and living works.
Her Book ongoing series is one I am POSITIVELY in love with!
This Solidarity Book Project holds the same message of educating through a revolutionary lens, marking and cementing ourselves on the page.
Honestly, it will probably have its write-up soon!
I hope you enjoyed this blog!