Erika Diamond explores the fragility and resilience of the human body using materials that echo the properties of skin. Born to ballet dancers, Diamond creates work that is deeply informed by the expressive qualities of the body, the ephemeral nature of touch, and the power of presentation. A mentee of renowned artist Sonya Clark, Diamond examines textiles as conceptual skins that are protective yet permeable. Her work often incorporates materials like bullet-proof Kevlar and mirrored vinyl, which serve as metaphors for vulnerability, protection, and identity.

Eggshell Shirt – Business Casual (2022) is a meticulously quilted eggshell garment meditating on self-preservation and the complexity of queer experience. Diamond reflects, “As a queer woman, I walk through the world with a few extra layers of caution. I think a lot about protective exteriors, perceived fragility, and the paradox of safety and visibility. I find softness through breakage and strength in numbers.” The artist performed in a similar eggshell garment, inviting participants to hug her—an act that allowed both her skin and the fragile armor to register the physical imprints of the interaction.

As an artist working in Asheville, North Carolina, Diamond honors the labor and resilience of communities rebuilding after Hurricane Helene in Eggshell Work Glove (right) (2025), a piece reminiscent of heavy-duty gloves. Crafted from eggshells and tulle, she describes the work as a love letter to volunteers and survivors, highlighting the strength found in collective effort. In Houston, where the impact of past hurricanes still resonates, the glove serves as a powerful reminder of the fragility of our environment and the strength of communities in times of crisis.

Through these works, Diamond invites viewers to reflect on the dualities of protection and exposure, vulnerability and resilience. Her use of everyday materials transforms the mundane into the extraordinary, creating artifacts commemorating touch, labor, and the enduring power of human connection. By centering queer visibility and community care, Diamond’s work challenges us to consider how we navigate the world—both the barriers we build and the connections we forge.

Ato Ribeiro translates symbolic modes of communication from across the African diaspora, shifting traditionally textile-based expressions into complex, geometric wooden tapestries. His interlocking patterns reference Ghanaian adinkra and kente cloth traditions, as well as African-American quilts that were coded with secret messages and maps along the Underground Railroad. Adinkra are visual representations of concepts and proverbs traditionally stamped on cloth or ceramics. Kente cloth conveys social status, spiritual beliefs, and cultural heritage through its distinctive, intricate strip-woven patterns and color combinations. In Home Away From Home #10 (2023), Ribeiro incorporates Adinkra symbols throughout, including Nsaa (excellence and authenticity), Nkyinkyim (life’s twisting path), and Owuo Atwedee (the universal ladder of death).

Ribeiro draws inspiration from renowned fiber artist Sonya Clark, whose work is displayed in the exhibition, We Are Each Other, in the adjacent galleries. He says, “We’ve always used textiles to share stories…my job is to make the world remember these contributions.” By meticulously cutting, gluing, curing, and slicing repurposed wood into assemblages that invoke the communicative power of African diasporic textiles, the artist is also engaged in a mode of archiving cultural knowledge.

On view in the Case Study Space through January, 2019, HCCC presents a banner from Chicago-based artist and activist Aram Han Sifuentes’ “Protest Banner Lending Library.” Developed in response to the 2016 presidential election, the “Protest Banner Lending Library (PBLL)” provides a safe outlet for individuals to address their concerns about current socio-political issues by organizing protest banner workshops and allowing individuals to check out the banners made from the workshops. HCCC Curator Kathryn Hall interviewed Aram about this project and how she would like to see it move forward.

Kathryn Hall: Historically and internationally, there has been a strong correlation between textile practices and civil rights advocacy. In the early 20th Century, women suffragists sewed protest banners to fight for their right to vote. Around the same time, Gandhi encouraged the people of India to make their own khadi (homespun cloth) as an act of civil disobedience against British colonialism. Following the 2016 U.S. election, many people crocheted Pussy Hats in support of women’s rights. What is the significance of sewing for you, and why have you chosen it as the central process for your Protest Banner Lending Library?

Aram Han Sifuentes: Even though I do not necessarily align myself with some of these histories and movements that you mentioned, I use sewing to protest and fight against dominant culture. I use sewing, because it is linked to my identity politics as an immigrant of color. My mother is a seamstress, and I learned how to sew when I was six years old, the year that we moved to the United States. It was not a choice for me but a necessity to help my parents make a living as new immigrants in this country. I use sewing to create space within dominant culture for immigrants of color, particularly to insert and reclaim traditions of sewing as immigrant traditions and labor.

In addition, fabric banners have advantages to paper posters. First, they are easy to transport, since they can just be folded up. And, secondly, fabric banners can be reused many times. In this way, the project speaks to time and how long we are going to need to be fighting and protesting to create change.

KH: Since 2016, you have generated protest banner lending libraries across the country as a way to serve grassroots efforts. Why do you choose to create libraries that are specific to certain locations, rather than have the lending libraries operate to loan banners on a national scale? Have there been any outcomes that have been unexpected?

AS: National issues are not always local issues, and vice versa. Specificity is really important to me, since any type of generalization and abstraction becomes a violence in the ways in which it makes people and experiences invisible. I aim to make as many fights, protests, and specific concerns as present as possible. In this way, a big part of the PBLL is to become a resource for local activists and protestors. It’s critical that these banners support ongoing local protests.

KH: Where was OTRO MUNDO ES POSIBLE made? Could you speak about your experience working with this community and the relationships that you have developed through the project?

AS: OTRO MUNDO ES POSIBILE was made by my collaborator, Verónica Casado Hernández and me as part of the Chicago PBLL. Chicago is our home base and where the project first began in 2016. We’ve done workshops all over the city and have over 200 banners in the Chicago PBLL, which constantly get checked out and used.

KH: As a community organizer, what are some of the challenges that you face with this project? What would you like to see more of with the project moving forward, and how do you feel arts institutions can be most effective in helping support your work and creating spaces that support marginalized communities?

AS: I don’t think I’m a community organizer. I’d call myself an artist, socially engaged artist, and supporter/facilitator. The biggest challenge with PBLL is keeping up with all that is happening in the world and to create specific slogans that keep up with politics and news. There are new threats taking place every day on our rights and particularly the rights of certain racialized, gendered, and sexualized people.

There is a lot that arts institutions can do to create space for marginalized communities. For one, they need to hire and bring in more women, queer, disabled, POC (people of color) artists at every opportunity. As an immigrant of color, I think a lot about how certain arts institutions are not familiar or welcoming spaces for my people. I’d love to see this be worked on to make art and arts institutions become safe spaces for all.

Protest Banner Workshop

On January 16th, 5:30 – 8:00 PM, join HCCC for a free, banner-making workshop led by Verónica Hernandez as part of Aram Han Sifuentes’ Protest Banner Lending Library. During the workshop, visitors will learn how to create their own banner to share their voices and experiences and contribute to the growing library of handmade banners.

Participants will learn how to cut and attach letters to cloth to create large-scale banners that examine issues such as immigration, citizenship, race, and craft. Attendees are invited back to HCCC the following night, January 17, to continue the discussion about “craftivism” and to display their finished banners at the winter Craft Social event.

There are no fees for this workshop, and all materials for the banners are provided, but registration is required. Learn more and register here.

To learn more about the Protest Banner Lending Library and how to get involved, please visit the website.

About Aram Han Sifuentes

Based in Chicago, Illinois, Aram Han Sifuentes is a fiber, social practice, and performance artist who addresses issues related to immigrant and disenfranchised communities. Sifuentes uses skill sharing, specifically sewing techniques, to create opportunities for individuals to critique social and political inequality and empower one another through advocacy, subversion, and protest. She received her MFA in fiber and material studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in art and Latin American studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She is currently teaching as an adjunct assistant professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Sifuentes has received numerous awards. She was the 2016 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, a 2016 3Arts Awardee, and a 2017 Sustainable Arts Foundation Awardee. Sifuentes has exhibited her work at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation (St. Louis, MO), Jane Addams Hull-House Museum (Chicago, Illinois), Chicago Cultural Center (Chicago, Illinois), Asian Arts Initiative (Philadelphia, PA), Chung Young Yang Embroidery Museum (Seoul, South Korea), and the Design Museum (London, UK).

Livia Marin, “Nomad Patterns,” 2012. Ceramic, resin, plaster, transfer print. Thirty-two pieces in series. Photo courtesy of artist.

HCCC Curatorial Fellow Sarah Darro recently asked Livia Marin a few questions about the processes and inspiration behind her work. Livia is featured in HCCC’s Case Study Space and is presented in conjunction with the recent exhibition, Treachery of Material: The Surrealist Impulse in Craft.

Sarah Darro: Ceramic crockery seemingly melts into puddles, its patterns casting adrift, in your work. Existing in a solid state of eternal melting, your work captures impossibilities that seem conceived of in a dream state. The illusion of denaturing a material is a primary visual strategy of Surrealism and is famously depicted in Salvador Dalí’s seminal painting, The Persistence of Memory, in which clocks melt. The tension between the materiality of ceramic and the notion of melting makes the illusion even stronger, as clay only becomes more solid and vitrified under extreme heat. How did you conceive of the melting ceramic form, and does it have a conceptual link to Surrealism for you?

Livia Marin: More than the object as such or in isolation, and more than the sole subjectivity of a user, owner, or custodian of a given object, my work looks at the relationship between subject and object. With this in mind, a work can sometimes start from a curiosity in exploring a given material, a specific object, a process of making, or from an idea or feeling of something. The latter was the case for the ceramic pieces that you refer to:  the idea of “broken things.”  That is, how we relate with things that break and hence relate to aspects of loss and care are what gave rise to this series of ceramic objects. After a period of experimentation and research, I arrived at crockery:  objects that are ever present in our everyday life, however liminal they may be. They can be both contemporary and traditional and, just as importantly, their very material nature is enduring yet fragile.

Installation views of “Case Study: Livia Marin” at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Left: Livia Marin, “Nomad Patterns (ii),” 2012. Ceramic, resin, transfer print, glaze. Right: Livia Marin, “Broken Things (xvi),” 2012. Ceramic, resin, transfer print, glaze. Photos by Scott Cartwright and Sarah Darro.

I wanted to make an object that could be perceived ambiguously as something that is about to collapse or has just been restored, as if trying to capture precisely the moment of a breakage, of loss, but also of becoming something else, something other. I thought of this as producing a form of strangeness and indefiniteness. In the beginning, I did not think intentionally or consciously of these objects as informed by the impossibility presented by Surrealism, although I did come to see that relationship to them when I first began making them.

As an art student, I was very interested in the work of René Magritte. I felt very compelled by some of his works that present us with a very formal picture of the world that, although seemingly impossible, reaches us as if possible, yet defying cognition through perception and the ability of language to name what we see. There is something trapped in his paintings that I could not stop looking at or searching for. That sense of wonder, of rapture, of contemplation, if I may say so, within the aesthetic tradition, is indeed a force that has inspired me and informed my practice.

René Magritte, “Golconda,”1953. Oil on canvas. The Menil Collection, Houston.

In relation to language, it is interesting that I never imagined or named these works as “melting.” I thought of them more as a sort of puzzle or contradiction around the notion of spillage:  that what is intended to retain becomes itself an act (in suspension) of spillage. There is indeed a further sense of contradiction in that the objects look as if they are melted, when the case is precisely, as you say, that it is heat that gives ceramic its strength, its persistence in time.

SD: Much of your work explores our relationships with objects in an era of late capitalism, one that is dominated by mass-production, standardization, and global circulation. It is particularly poignant that, in Nomad Patterns, you use blue and white ceramic, which is one of the most recognized types of ceramic production in the world, with traditions in Asia, the Islamic world, Europe, and the Americas. How does your work fit into this history of globalization, and how did you come to incorporate ceramics and transferware into your artistic practice?

LM: This is an absolutely central issue, both in this series of works and in my work more generally. Issues like how global trade and the forces of the market determine the presence and absence of the objects that surround us, and how that gives shape to our material surroundings, have been very important in informing my practice. Within the world of the mass-produced and global distribution of objects, the transition between the handmade and mechanical reproduction has been of most interest to me. Within this world, the creation of genuinely unique objects and also the genuine copying of them have become so central in the manufacture of objects and material culture in general. At this stage of consumerism, many mass-produced items attempt to benefit both from economies of scale, while also attempting to brand themselves as “exclusive,” or “signature edition,” and so on.  I think an aspect of my work is to offer a critical response to this.

Miles Mason, “The Two Temples,” ca. 1805. Earthenware, transfer printed in underglaze blue. The Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Livia Marin, “Broken Things (mixed media),” 2012. C-Type print, golden thread, paper, wooden frame.

The blue and white ceramic tradition is a great example of the exchanges, mixtures, overlaps—how the other, the unknown, is conceived and presented—that commerce has produced. In this, I have worked particularly with the Willow Pattern, which connotes so many interesting layers of meaning and appropriation. The pattern, conceived by an English man “as if” it were Chinese, is situated at the outset of the second Chinoiserie period (ca. 1780); also, marking the transition from the hand painted to the use of transfer prints and coinciding more generally with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, it was one of the first motifs to be reproduced using engraving methods that could mechanically reproduce the same motif indefinitely. Today, the Willow Pattern has become a design that has fallen into hackneyed convention through overuse. Equally, however, it carries the ghost of a prestige still accorded to blue and white porcelain, together with a nostalgic glance towards the innocence of an English tearoom and a bucolic past.

SD: This series of work has been widely shared, disseminated, and discussed on the Internet. Knowing that the Internet has, in many ways, propelled globalized networks, I find the viral reception of your work online to be an interesting parallel to your own investigations of globalization. Could you comment on this parallel between the virtual dissemination of your work and the global trajectory of blue and white ceramics? Why do you think this work is resonating with people across the world?

LM: How fascinating:  this is the first time I have been asked this question. I have wondered about it myself and, to be honest, I do not have a straightforward answer. I do share with you the sense that what is interesting is the fact of being so interested in the mass-produced and the multiplication of objects, and that this specific work has somehow done something along those lines, parallel to this, in virtual reality:  a sort of autonomous mass-production. I guess that the “virtual dissemination” that you mention has to do with two things:  with the perception of an image (in this case, the image of the work) and the language of virtual communication and the various social media that governs contemporary life.

Livia Marin, “Nomad Patterns,” 2012. Ceramic, resin, plaster, transfer print. Thirty-two pieces in series. Photo courtesy of artist.

Perhaps the object connotes that contradiction that you mention, between a possible and an impossible world, and does it very efficiently and quickly, which is the rule of the virtual world:  in the world of browsing, there is no time for puzzling, for a second look.  An image has to provoke in a half second; otherwise it doesn’t register. Whilst this speaks for how people choose to communicate to others today, I would also say that even though the work is simple, it has depth. While it contains a certain tragedy, it has humor at the same time, and, since it employs an everyday object, it resonates with the many gazes of different backgrounds, genders, and ages. Much more could be said, I’m sure, about the transmission of two-dimensional images. It is, perhaps, ironic that my works have found this exposure when they are so grounded in concrete materiality.

Livia Marin, “Nomad Patterns,” 2012. Ceramic, resin, plaster, transfer print. Thirty-two pieces in series. Photo courtesy of artist.

About Livia Marin

Livia Marin is a London-based Chilean artist. Her work is informed by the social and political context of Chile, specifically the country’s transition from a dictatorship to neo-liberalism. She holds a PhD in art from Goldsmiths College, University of London; an MA in visual arts from Universidad de Chile; and a BA in fine arts from Universidad ARCIS.  Marin has exhibited widely both in her native Chile and internationally.

Peter Callas assisting Peter Voulkos in Belvidere, NJ, 1998. Peter Callas built the first anagama kiln in the United States, and Voulkos fired many of his pieces in it later in his career. Photo by TolneGGG (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0), via Wikimedia Commons.

The following text accompanied the work, Untitled Plate (1989), by Peter Voulkos, on view April 18 – May 21, 2017, at HCCC as part of the Case Study exhibition series. Rotating periodically throughout the year, this series presents an in-depth look at craft-based objects as they relate to current events and/or spotlights a moment in craft history.

HCCC would like to thank the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, for making this work available for exhibition. Please make sure to visit In the Studio: Craft in Postwar America, 1950 – 1970, on view at the MFAH through October 8, 2017, to learn more about the development of Studio Craft in the United States.

Peter Voulkos (American, 1924-2002) was a pioneer of Studio Craft, a post-World War II movement in the United States that experimented with new techniques in the traditional materials of metal, clay, glass, wood, and fiber, as well as non-traditional materials. He shaped the ceramic avant-garde during the mid-20th Century and broadened the scope of contemporary ceramics through his experimentation with surface and form.

Over the span of his 50-year career, Voulkos opened the doors for others to find their own voice in clay. He was introduced to ceramics at Montana State University, where, as a World War II veteran, his studies were funded by the G.I. Bill, which gave veterans the opportunity to further their education. In 1954, he spearheaded the new ceramics department at the Los Angeles County Art Institute (now Otis College of Art and Design), encouraging many other veterans and like-minded individuals to break the mold of traditional ceramics. He followed this position with a 26-year tenure at University of California-Berkeley.

Untitled Plate was made by Peter Voulkos later in his career and demonstrates the ceramicist’s lifelong fascination with deconstructing classical forms. Voulkos began making plates in the 1950s, but it was not until the latter part of his career that he focused more deeply on the power of gesture and the use of natural ash glazes on his plates’ surfaces. His plates are constructed off center, with wide rims that frame his compositions. Once the pieces are thrown, he dismantles the forms’ historical and functional constraints, using a series of tools, including his own hands.

Akin to the action painters of Abstract Expressionism and influenced by Japanese ceramics, Voulkos thrived on spontaneity, letting the material direct the outcome of his work. Drawing with a knife, he carved into his plates, muddying the boundaries between drawing and sculpture. With his fingers, he pushed deeper into the clay, leaving traces of himself behind to react to the spontaneity of the kiln. In Untitled Plate, Voulkos used the 2,300-degree heat of an anagama, a traditional, Japanese-style wood kiln, to produce the rich earthy colors of the natural ash glazes.

The cat-eared knit hat on view at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft this spring has traveled thousands of miles, from a Maine-based knitting group to New Jersey; Pennsylvania; Washington, D.C.; and now Houston. It was worn on January 21, 2017, in Washington, D.C., at the Women’s March, the largest single-day peaceful demonstration in United States history. Betsey Norland, a knitter from Lambertville, New Jersey, was unable to attend the protest herself and knitted eight hats as a way to participate, commenting, “A little bit of me was on a lot of women.” This handmade hat is just one of millions that were created for and worn by participants marching in Washington, D.C., and in 600 sister marches worldwide.

Jayna Zweiman and Krista Suh launched the Pussyhat Project with the aim of creating a united visual statement at the Women’s March through a “sea of pink.” The project connected people fighting for women’s rights around the world and provided knitting templates and videos to teach people how to crochet and knit. On the day of the Women’s March, the sweeping ribbon of pink hats worn by protesters visually united the over 5 million people who marched for women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, immigration reform, healthcare reform, and a number of other issues following the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump. The project continues to be active, with a virtual Pussyhat March taking place on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2017.

The stitches that compose the pointed ears of the Pussyhat follow a long and deeply interwoven history of fiber and activism, a form of craftivism. Early 20th-century activists embroidered suffragette flags to support the movement for women’s right to vote in the United States and the United Kingdom. From 1918 to 1947, supporters of the Indian Independence movement used homespun cloth, called khadi, to resist the British monopoly on textiles. More recently, Brooklyn-based fiber artist Chi Nguyen initiated 5.4 Million and Counting, a community embroidery project, to resist the 2013 Texas omnibus anti-abortion bill. Tally marks, representing the number of women who would lose access to abortion and reproductive healthcare in Texas, were sewn by people across the country and brought together in a quilt that was displayed outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on March 2, 2016, where the restrictions were struck down. Craft artists continue to find new ways to subvert gender paradigms, enable community building, and serve activist movements.