Community building through traditional needlework: Duwenavue Santé Johnson

Duwenavue Santé Johnson: Community building through traditional needlework
Monday, November 6, 11 AM, College Center 220 and via Zoom: https://northampton-edu.zoom.us/s/91026490101

Duwenavue Santé Johnson will discuss her process and development as an artist with stitch as a medium, vehicle for wellness and community building. She will also share her work in the art of heraldry and official flags as an embroiderer for the United States government and as an archivist at the Masonic Temple of Philadelphia.

Recognizing and coming to terms with manifest destiny and migratory freedoms frame her projects as does the focus on creating a better world and engaging with the pathways that brought us here. Hand-embroidery, based on principles of action, is a deliberate process. Johnson aims to maintain a slow art movement in this country.

A BIPOC artist, born on a military base in California, Duwenavue Santé Johnson was raised for eight years in West Germany before moving back to the United States. Family lineage traces its ancestry to the north and south of the United States. After earning her GED and before studying Hand Embroidery, she was a mural apprentice on a king’s project for 2 years in Bangkok. Painting led to meeting Mother Theresa’s Nuns in India, who introduced her to French Embroidery and non-violent activism through teaching and community building. Johnson has certificates and diplomas from the Royal School of Needlework, UK, Ecole Lesage, Atelier Zardosi in Paris and Important Intangible Cultural Property in Seoul, South Korea. She studied broom making at the Ozark Folk School and royal Hawaiian Feather Lei making at Na Lima Mili Hulu No’eau while transitioning to 18th-century English weaving at Marshfield School of Weaving. Based in Philadelphia and San Francisco, Duwenavue Santé Johnson is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, needle arts teacher, and lecturer.

Learn more about Johnson’s work here:
https://www.artxstitch.com/
Voyage Baltimore interview: https://tinyurl.com/5kxcywmk
KYW Newsradio feature: https://tinyurl.com/mt7s3pxf
ABC News piece: https://6abc.com/philly-proud-flag-room-presidential-hand-embroiderers/13696435/
Masonic Temple feature: https://pamasonictemple.org/news/hand-eye-and-heart-work/

Contact rgorchov@northampton.edu with any questions about this event.