Feminist Subjectivities in Fiber Art and Craft: Shadows of Affect

by John Corso-Esquivel

This book interprets the fiber art and craft-inspired sculpture by eight US and Latin American women artists whose works incite embodied affective experience. Grounded in the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, John Corso-Esquivel posits craft as a material act of intuition. The book provocatively asserts that fiber art—long disparaged in the wake of the high–low dichotomy of late Modernism—is, in fact, well-positioned to lead art at the vanguard of affect theory and twenty-first-century feminist subjectivities.

183 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 9, 2019

Reviews

[Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

SUCH a good read. This is the first fibers theory book I’ve sat down to read and it threw a lot of concepts at me. It was highly confusing but very thoroughly explained. I had a lot of “aha” moments where things finally fell into place for me and I realized what the previous few pages had been conveying. A lot of what was discussed were concepts I’ve always resonated with but didn’t have the vocabulary/theory background to fully realize them. Really interesting selection of artists too, and I appreciate how sensitive Esquivel is to a nuanced approach. I made a small 8 page booklet of notes while getting through this book since I was renting a copy and couldn’t highlight.


I feel like I’ve been dancing around the concept of affective work for so long and now I finally have some tangible knowledge that I can start utilizing in my own work. I also have a much greater appreciation for shadows, I didn’t really think of them as part of a piece (unless explicitly stated) before. The very last sentence was heartwarming describing, “shadow of affect as the compassionate fabric woven from these psychic strings.”