The Daily Boost #492
We are millions of stitches
Following by happy serendipity on the heels of yesterday’s “Oh, Had I Golden Thread,” here is the Red Dress, a project conceived by British artist Kirstie Macleod to provide an artistic platform for people around the world to tell their personal stories through embroidery.
From 2009 to 2023, pieces of the Red Dress travelled the globe, being continuously embroidered. The garment was worked on by 366 women/girls, seven men/boys, and two non-binary artists from fifty-one countries.
Covered in millions of stitches, the silk Red Dress weighs nearly fifteen pounds. It is a powerful testimony to creativity, including that which helps human beings to survive and thrive.
Among others, the embroiderers include female refugees from Palestine, Syria, and Ukraine; women seeking asylum in the UK from Iran, Iraq, China, Nigeria, and Namibia; survivors of war in Kosovo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Rwanda, and DR Congo; and impoverished women in South Africa, Mexico, and Egypt.
View the dress in 3-D here.
View more images of the dress and the embroidering process here. And here.
(My thanks to all those involved in the Red Dress project, via My Modern Net.)
🧡 Thanks for reading! As part of The Raft, this newsletter is kept afloat by beautiful readers like you. If you like my work, please support it by becoming a paid subscriber, buying my books, or inviting me to speak. And remember to add your 2¢ by leaving comments!
The Gentle Nudge
Join other Rafters this week for . . .
Poetry Pick-Me-Up (Zoom, Thursday, 12:00-1:00PM Central, at this link)
Other opportunities:
(Paid) Register by June 26 for “The Rapture of Being Alive,” a poetry workshop with Donna Hilbert on July 10 (Zoom).
(Free) Register for “Book Bash: Celebrating Poetry of Presence II” (June 27, Zoom).
you are a wonder of a stitch—and stitcher! what a joy to bear witness!
Super cool!