This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights Kristen Jeffers’s Black Queer Feminist Urbanist commentary on one key issue every week. This week we are making an adult craft neighborhood out of a childhood craft playground.
At the end of the day, we all make things. And we make places to make things.
That’s our theme this week, as we close out this inaugural Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Summit. Be sure to subscribe to The Black Urbanist YouTube channel for all of the public talks. You can also support our summits, podcasts, workshops and newsletters financially on a monthly basis via Patreon, invoice me at kristen@theblackurbanist.com, or do a one-time donation on Venmo to buy me a book. And now, to the sewing room and the fabric store, the places in and out of home where I first learned to make.
Fabric/Craft Store As Childhood Playground
In that sewing room, which was first a corner of my mom’s bedroom, then it’s own separate bedroom in later homes and years, everything from my baby clothes, to a trendy 1990s printed-on-the-front-shiny-on-the-back dress, to my high school choral and prom dresses were handmade by my mom from patterns with names such as Butterick or Simplicity from stores such as PieceGoods and Hancock Fabrics.
My mom worked part-time at PieceGoods back in the mid-1990s, and sometimes I would come with her and sit quietly in the back, with a couple of other children also accompanying their moms to work.
Let me do an aside here to note that take your child to work day is often every day at some jobs and definitely not the novelty that white middle class and above feminism wants it to be, but I digress…
Craft Space in Adult Neighborhood
Just like it took me years to see that being concerned about sustainable and people-centric transportation was a practical concern, it also took years for me to see that my concern about where my clothes came from, what they were made out of and how they were made was more than a childhood playground, with a Sears Kenmore sewing machine as one of those combined multifunctional pieces of playground equipment and the fabric and craft stores as a McDonalds PlayPlace of self-sufficiency.
We need all ideas and hands on deck to end the climate crisis.
Our malls and shopping districts can’t be disconnected from transit systems, fail to provide all kinds of community resources and the unsold clothes and goods they produce can’t become environmental hazards or continue to be made in ways that dehumanize and enslave.
Right now, this is my landscape of craft stores. None of them are in walking distance. I’m willing to bet that if you live in a neighborhood like mine, that’s mostly people of color, there’s a 50/50 chance you can’t walk to a craft store. Or, you’re in a garment district where people don’t get the wages and benefits they deserve for this kind of work.
This has to change.
So, tomorrow night, I relaunch my Patreon only podcast Public Lecture with Kristen Jeffers with a special out of paywall edition on my Patreon and YouTube featuring a fellow planner at the intersection of urbanism and making, Illana Preuss. You can get her new book Recast City or reach out to her if you want to start the process of handing cities back to small business, especially small manufacturers.
And on Wednesday, I’m going to be talking live on the Kristpattern and The Black Urbanist YouTube’s with Brooke Addams of Fully Spun, about our shared love of fiber craft, being Black queer business people in Maryland and on her recent successful Kickstarter and how crowdfunding has kept us going.
Finally, I’ll be previewing my new Art Class level of Patreon, with a taste of this live crochet class on Friday evening live on the Kristpattern YouTube.
And you’re going to hear even more from me with these podcasts, workshops and one day, in a fixed place, hook and machine in hand and nearby, crafting my adult craft neighborhood from my childhood craft playground.
I’ll be back next week with recaps of the entire summit, information about next years in-person summit and how you can join one of my “class levels” on Patreon and get more information and resources.
Before You Go
— I’m more energized than I was in this section last week, but I still need to get to a $2,000 minimum monthly income by the end of the calendar year, or else I will extend my January sabbatical, save launching the rebooted elements of the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist School. Pledge monthly or annually on Patreon, donate one-time either through Venmo or emailing me (kristen@theblackurbanist.com) so I can invoice you through Intuit Quickbooks, where I can collect payment of any kind, including Apple and Google Pay.
— Something else that energized me, was watching this almost two hour thread of “sustainable” businesses. I know some of these methods are little more than greenwashing, but I was really inspired to see countries in the Global South come up with their own solutions to all the waste that’s been poured on them in the global north.
— This is Trans Awareness Week and next Saturday, November 20, is Trans Day of Remembrance. This is the deadliest year on record for trans people, and many of those deaths happen in the shadows of some of our favorite major cities. Learn more about this week and observance from GLAAD and the Transgender District of San Francisco, an initiative led by trans women of color to honor one of the most pivotal places in the struggle for trans civil rights, as the demographics around the area rapidly change and attempt to erase this valuable history.
—To my fellow trans/nonbinary/genderqueer/gender non-conforming folks, we love you and we honor you. We all are human and have a place in the most vibrant and abundant corners of this planet. Remember, if you’re Black and Queer and Feminist, I especially want to hear from you. Message me and let’s chat!