Textile arts are arts and crafts that use plant, animal, or synthetic fibers to construct practical or decorative objects.
Dambudzo Marechera was a Zimbabwean novelist, short story writer, playwright, and poet. His short career produced a book of stories, two novels, a book of plays, prose, and poetry, and a collection of poetry. His first book, a fiction collection entitled The House of Hunger (1978), won the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1979. Marechera was best known for his abrasive, heavily detailed, and self-aware writing, which was considered a new frontier in African literature, and his unorthodox behaviour at the universities from which he was expelled despite excelling in his studies.
Cornrows are a style of three-strand braids in which the hair is braided very close to the scalp, using an underhand, upward motion to make a continuous, raised row. Cornrows are often done in simple, straight lines, as the term implies, but they can also be styled in elaborate geometric or curvilinear designs. They are considered a traditional hairstyle in many African cultures, as well as in the African diaspora. They are distinct from, but may resemble, box braids, Dutch braids, melon coiffures, and other forms of plaited hair, and are typically tighter than braids used in other cultures.
Charles Lovemore Mungoshi, was a Zimbabwean writer.
Brian Chippendale is an American musician and artist, known as the drummer and vocalist for the experimental noise rock band Lightning Bolt and for his graphic art. Chippendale is based in Providence, Rhode Island.
Anni Albers was a German-Jewish visual artist and printmaker. A leading textile artist of the 20th century, she is credited with blurring the lines between traditional craft and art. Born in Berlin in 1899, Fleischmann initially studied under impressionist painter Martin Brandenburg from 1916 to 1919 and briefly attended the Kunstgewerbeschule in Hamburg in 1919. She later enrolled at the Bauhaus, an avant-garde art and architecture school founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1922, where she began exploring weaving after facing restrictions in other disciplines due to gender biases at the institution.
Haircloth is commonly understood as a stiff, unsupple fabric made from coarse fibre from camelids, bovines, horses, goats, rabbits, hares and reindeers. However, a softer variation is valued in the textile and fashion industries for their rarity, aesthetics and comfort. This is because there are two types of hair used in making haircloth; a rougher outer “guard coat”, and a softer undercoat. The outer coats are used in coarse fabrics, often applied to upholstery, carpets, underskirts and hairshirts, or cilices, while "luxury fabrics" use the softer undercoat.
Lorna Simpson is an American photographer and multimedia artist whose works have been exhibited both nationally and internationally. In 1990, she became one of the first African-American woman to exhibit at the Venice Biennale. She came to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s with photo-text installations such as Guarded Conditions and Square Deal that questioned the nature of identity, gender, race, history and representation. Simpson continues to explore these themes in relation to memory and history using photography, film, video, painting, drawing, audio, and sculpture.
The Yale School of Art is the art school of Yale University. Founded in 1869 as the first professional fine arts school in the United States, it grants Masters of Fine Arts degrees to students completing a two-year course in graphic design, painting/printmaking, photography, or sculpture.
Kinky hair also known as afro-textured hair, is a human hair texture prevalent in the indigenous populations of many regions with hot climates, mainly Sub-Saharan Africa and some areas of Melanesia, and Australia. Each strand of this hair type grows in a repeating pattern of small contiguous kinks which can be classified as tight twists and sharp folds. These numerous kinks make kinky hair appear denser than straight, wavy, and other curly hair types.
Jessica Helfand is a designer, author, and educator. She is a former contributing editor and columnist for Print, Eye and Communications Arts magazine, and founding editor of the website Design Observer. She is Senior Critic at Yale School of Art since 1994, a lecturer in Yale College, and Artist-in-Residence at Yale’s Institute for Network Science. Named the first Henry Wolf Resident in design at the American Academy in Rome in 2010, she is a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale and the Art Director’s Hall of Fame. In 2013, she won the AIGA medal.
Lorraine Wild is a Canadian-born American graphic designer, writer, art historian, and teacher. She is an AIGA Medalist and principal of Green Dragon Office, a design firm that focuses on collaborative work with artists, architects, curators, editors and publishers. Wild is based in Los Angeles, California.
Sonya Clark is an American artist of Afro-Caribbean heritage. Clark is a fiber artist known for using a variety of materials including human hair and combs to address race, culture, class, and history. Her beaded headdress assemblages and braided wig series of the late 1990s, which received critical acclaim, evoked African traditions of personal adornment and moved these common forms into the realm of personal and political expression. Although African art and her Caribbean background are important influences, Clark also builds on practices of assemblage and accumulation used by artists such as Betye Saar and David Hammons.
Tinashe Jorgensen Kachingwe, known mononymously as Tinashe, is an American singer, dancer, and actress. Born in Lexington, Kentucky, Tinashe moved to Pasadena, California as a child, where she pursued work in entertainment. Her notable roles include a motion-capture performance in the animated film The Polar Express (2004), Robin Wheeler in the Cartoon Network television series Out of Jimmy's Head (2007–2008), and a recurring role in the CBS series Two and a Half Men (2008–2009). From 2007 to 2011, she was a member of the girl group the Stunners. After they disbanded, Tinashe released her first musical project, the alternative R&B-styled mixtape In Case We Die (2012) to positive critical reception, and signed with RCA Records shortly after. Her second and third mixtapes, Reverie (2012) and Black Water (2013), received further praise.
African-American hair or Black hair refers to hair types, textures, and styles that are linked to African-American culture, often drawing inspiration from African hair culture. It plays a major role in the identity and politics of Black culture in the United States and across the diaspora. African-American hair often has a kinky hairy texture, appearing tightly coiled and packed. Black hair has a complex history, culture, and cultural impact, including its relationship with racism.
The 2010s were defined by hipster fashion, athleisure, a revival of austerity-era period pieces and alternative fashions, swag-inspired outfits, 1980s-style neon streetwear, and unisex 1990s-style elements influenced by grunge and skater fashions. The later years of the decade witnessed the growing importance in the western world of social media influencers paid to promote fast fashion brands on Pinterest and Instagram.
The natural hair movement is a movement which aims to encourage people of African descent to embrace their natural, afro-textured hair; especially in the workplace. It originated in the United States during the 1960s, and resurged in popularity in the 2000s.
Althea Murphy-Price is an American artist who specializes in printmaking, and Professor of Art at University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Her work "contemplates the power of hair as a signifier of cultural self-identity."
Laetitia Ky is a feminist artist from Ivory Coast who creates sculptures from her hair, and is seen by many as a figurehead in the natural hair movement.
Tendai Moyo, also known as Varaidzo Tendai Moyo, is the Zimbabwean-born co-founder and CEO of Ruka Hair, a direct to consumer hair extension brand for Afro-Caribbean women who prefer natural hair.
