The Pathway has been Opened

“The Pathway Has Been Opened”
7 in. X 11 in. Made of Black Navajo Churro from @springcoyoteranch, hemp from @Rawganique, and white Weaving Southwest Churro.

This was a weaving to guide a friend and a loved one’s relation home to the great flow. Yet, they miraculously recovered and this has become a death work weaving in waiting. I did get to show it to my loved one and they were so overjoyed to be receiving it. This is why gifting will always play such a central role in my practice. That joy meant everything to me. I may be selling my work now, but that does not change the ultimate anticapitalist, antiracist, and antifascist, antisexist nature of this practice.

To that end, let me give y’all a reminder on the aims of this project. I am tracking down an ancestral way to spin and weave as a response to the rampant cultural appropriation by white folx, my people, of other indigenous people’s cultures. I stared into the void of whiteness and saw that it had erased my ties to my own ancestors, leaving nothing but an empty longing for something more. Critical race theory is what set me down my path toward my celtic ancestors. My understanding of the power, oppression, and the real consequences of the social construction of race made this work essential or whiteness would render me passive and immobile.

Accessibility, Inclusion, and reparations are core values of this project, not to demonstrate performative allyship, but as actions of solidarity which recognize that no one is free if anyone is still in chains. I am not far down this pathway, as I am just starting out as a person who does commerce. There are many iterations of working out the dialectic of my values and actions with this statement, but I am committed. I will not gaslight someone who comes to me with a concern or suggests a way to make my offerings more accessible. No, I have been gaslit too many times by white folx who aim to shuffle all these vital issues aside to assuage their own sense of culpability. Spoiler alert, if you’re able-bodied, white, a man, identify as heterosexual, Christian, and have resources that you count as wealth, you are culpable. Since I tick a lot of these boxes, it’s my responsibilities to build an organization that actively combats these inequities.

Towards that end, I have the following set of offerings that I want to open for folx to ensure that people have access to my workshops and weavings this year: 1.) I will open up two free weaving workshops a year and reduced cost for BIPOC folx in all workshops; 2.) I will offer up two woven pieces for giveaway in a year; 3.) I will give 10% of all proceeds from all purchases to a Mutual Aid or non-profit organizations that serve BIPOC populations and other historically marginalized populations. 4.) I will weave 1 piece a year and place it up for auction, with 100% of the proceeds going to a non-profit or mutual aid organization. Rather than make this seem like I have all the answers, I want to hear from y’all. How can I make my offers my inclusive and accessible to the community? What other practices have I not considered?