Social meanings of patchwork textile art: women, nature and the house

Abstract

Patchwork is an iconographical textile art created by artists, mostly women, by combining strips of fabric on canvases. Hence, this qualitative research examines four topics: the
patchwork, women, nature and the domestic sphere, closely intertwined categories from a social and historical point of view. Its conceptual framework draws on Jean-Yves Durand, Elaine Hedges, Michel Foucault, Allison Fraiberg, Teri Klassen, Linda Nochlin, Rozsika Parker and Beverly Seaton about needle arts, self-care, material culture, domesticity, femininity, hierarchy, identities, memory, motherhood, subservience and autonomy. Its empirical scope encompasses artists from the Clube
Brasileiro de Patchwork and Quilting of São Paulo, whose interviews and works provided a larger understanding of the social and cultural meanings represented. The analysis has two main axes: (1) social aesthetics of flowers and gardens, and (2) meanings attributed to the house based on childhood reminiscences. By intertwining conceptual reflections with the life trajectories and pictorial expressions of the patchwork canvases, the paper highlights elements like the place and meanings of textile art and the female artists’ role in contemporary Brazil.