Chelsea Swan

Craft is the shared artistic history of women, relegated to lesser prestige, but passed down through history majoritively through gender. From a young age I have been taught by my grandmother, mother and aunts to create, taught to sew, embroider, make, crochet, knit. Not just as an act of necessity but as a creative act. I am glad there is far more notice being given to the forgotten female artist who expressed themselves through craft but I feel like its relegation has lead to so much loss. It is also being increasingly used by artists seen as legitimized by the system, such as Tracey Emin and Louise Bourgeois. It is a history that has been passed down and built upon by other artists, and is now being subverted.

I am a great believer in the medium suiting the message, the materials you use, what is appropriate to what you are saying is of great importance, but I am yet to find anything I can’t embroider, add sequins too and make hyper feminine. I think this may be because my work centres around the lived female experience, performed femininity, and the medium of textiles, as a womens medium suits the message.

I also love to use glitters and beads an things which would be considered hyper feminine, girlie, childish. Since my work has always just been for myself I have felt no need to shy away from it looking regressive or too much, or make serious pieces. It is my life that I express and I myself am childish and girlie and a feminist. I enjoy the tactility and physicality and the movement of my own body when working with textiles and feel there is more of myself in the work. It does drag on a bit sometimes though.

Finally I love finding things at Charity shops and vintage stores that were once owned by other women or girls. Either items I can decorate or unused wools, cottons, beads, buttons. I feel that I am remembering them, carrying on their work.