Editorial consultant, editor, writer, communications, artist. Expertise in art, craft, and culture, museums, sustainable textiles and apparel, organic foods and textiles.
Natalie Chanin's Journey Home: Interview, Part One
An interview with sustainable fashion pioneer Natalie Chanin, author of Embroidery: Threads and Stories (Abrams, 2022).
A Conversation With Alex White Plume: Hemp Warrior and Common Man
A former President and leader of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, Alex White Plume’s historic decades-long fight to grow hemp is as deeply rooted in spiritual tradition as it is in economic development goals for his people.
By Elaine Lipson
Seeking to build a business on the Pine Ridge Reservation where he was born, Alex White Plume planted hemp on his family land in the year 2000 — a legal act under Oglala Sioux Tribe sovereignty. But the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) saw it differently....
Hemp Textile and Apparel Industry Ready to Grow, Expand Reach
The story of hemp textiles and clothing began thousands of years ago, and continued well into the 20th century. But in countries throughout the world, legal prohibitions on growing Cannabis sativa put an end to this ancient story and took hemp textiles and apparel out of the market for many decades.
Today, as regulations on hemp farming change to allow growing and processing of Cannabis sativa (with THC and cannabinoids under a threshold) as hemp, textiles and apparel are back on the radar th...
Book Reviews for Clothroads.com
Textile artists and collectors know well that the humblest bits of fabric can yield the most beautiful things in the hands of the right maker. It’s the essence of patchwork, boro, and other textile traditions born of both scarcity and reverence for cloth. This exquisite book explores new and inventive ways that industrial and pre-consumer textile waste and scraps are being used to transform this forgotten consequence of modern industrial textile production...
Executive Summary: The International Market for Sustainable Apparel
This report covers the international retail market for “green” and sustainable apparel. Sustainable apparel is a new, emerging market that includes clothing made from fabrics considered to be more environmentally safe and/or renewable than conventional textiles. Organic cotton is the most established of this family of fibers and fabrics, which also includes organic wool, organic linen, hemp, recycled polyester fleece, some silk, and fabrics made from bamboo, corn, and soy. New fabrics are in development by companies eager to enter this market.
One Nation, Organically Grown
Consumer education piece written for Organic Valley Cooperative on the federal organic standards and what they mean, written when the standards were first released after years of industry, community, and citizen input.
The Organic Foods Sourcebook (Sourcebooks): Elaine Lipson ...
A must-have for every concerned consumer, this comprehensive reference explains the important health and environmental benefits of organic foods. It details where to find and buy them on a budget, and how "organic" differs from other "eco-labels." It also provides key information about current legislative activity as well as a complete resource guide.
25 Must-Read Books for [Natural Foods] Retailers
The Organic Foods Sourcebook, by Elaine Marie Lipson; McGraw-Hill Contemporary, 2001
This text provides a great starting point for those wanting more information about organic foods and products. Lipson answers the basic questions that organic proponents often take for granted: What does organic mean exactly? Why buy organic? How do I know the food is organic? Lipson also provides much-needed guidance on the difference between the variety of claims found on packaged products...
BEING INGENIOUS: DESIGN IN EMBROIDERY BY KATHLEEN WHYTE
As a continuation our book review series about vintage embroidery books, we explore Design in Embroidery by Kathleen Whyte with contributing writer and textile artist Elaine Lipson. See previous posts on The Art of Embroidery by Françoise Tellier-Loumagne and Design for Artists and Craftsmen by Louis Wolchonok.
Today’s explosion of interest in stitching owes a lot to the last embroidery and needlework renaissance in the 1960s and 70s, when experimental forms of modern design began to be integ...
A Storyteller's Story
In the best tradition of folk artists, Jude Hill is a storyteller. Her textile work blends piecing, appliqué, kantha stitching, and embroidery into strong, organic whole cloths rich in imagery and revelation. The materials—raw fragments of fabric, always with a history—and the motions of repetitive hand stitching, are intimate and familiar; the concepts mythical, imaginative, evocative. Jude calls her work spirit cloth, and writes a blog under the same name that has brought her technique and ...
Slow Cloth: Presentation for Textile Society of America Symposium 2012
PDF of my presentation on my original concept of Slow Cloth
Exposure to chemicals begins in womb
Human exposure to a sea of toxic chemicals begins in the womb, according to a benchmark study by Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog organization. As reported in "Body Burden: The Pollution in Newborns," released July 14, 10 samples of umbilical cord blood from U.S.-born children were tested for 413 industrial and consumer product chemicals. Of these, 287 chemicals were present in the samples, with an average of 200 contaminants in each newborn child.
DESIGN FOR ARTISTS AND CRAFTSMEN
We continue our book review series with contributing writer and textile artist, Elaine Lipson, with a look at a classic design tome, Design for Artists and Craftsmen.
What can a funky old hardbound Dover book, written by a man born in the 19th century, teach us about modern design? First published in 1953 (and available used and in libraries today), Design for Artists and Craftsmen is a workbook of design exercises that will push your skills and imagination in unexpected ways. If you’re searc...
THE ART OF EMBROIDERY
This week we share insight and inspiration from The Art of Embroidery: Inspirational Stitches, Textures and Surfaces in a Journal series from our contributing writer, Elaine Lipson.
As I was reading Françoise Tellier-Loumagne’s The Art of Embroidery: Inspirational Stitches, Textures and Surfaces, her deep visual dive into embroidery as an art and design form, I began to imagine the first embroiderer. Sometime in the 5th century B.C., maybe somewhere in China, our original stitcher broke throu...
Organic consumers share values, not demographics
The organic products industry is often portrayed, at least anecdotally, as a movement for affluent suburbanites who fit a predictable demographic profile: well-educated, high-income, liberal-leaning, heterosexual Caucasian females in their 30s or 40s with children. As the organic movement strides into the mainstream, however, any effort to pigeonhole the organic consumer may lag behind reality. Marketing professionals may find lucrative returns from looking beyond the stereotype to new segments whose common traits are personal values rather than high-end addresses or advanced degrees.