"Art can impact the social context of family dislocations and can serve as a powerful tool in encouraging an open national dialogue about Zero Tolerance in our country"
So (sew) America Cares is a participatory social art project with a commitment to raise awareness about the lives of the children separated from their parents at the border. All the faces stitched together strengthen the very fabric of our own society.
In 2018 a Zero Tolerance immigration policy was announced, requiring that all families who cross the border shall not only be separated but also charged in federal court with the misdemeanor crime of illegal entry.
This Project’s mission is to advocate for these children and to extend an invitation to anyone who would like to participate. Thread by thread, fiber by fiber, a participating community will increase its understanding of the circumstances of these children who never asked to be illegal aliens. The project consists of 10 different faces that will be repeated 100 times each to add 1000 faces. The faces had been laser etched on raw canvas to allow the participant to use any kind of thread, yarn, wool, fabric, paint etc. So (sew) America Cares has a plan: to "sew" them back, to never allow these children to be lost again, to create a quilt of 1000 faces representing a portion of these children.
We cannot allow these traumatized children to disappear and in time, be forgotten.People are encouraged to stitch, sew, knit, knot, crochet, embroider, or braid these drawings so as to symbolically recover these children’s faces and lives again.
​
So (sew) America Cares is an international call for people to participate and raise awareness as to the consequences of this immigration policy and its devastating effect on children. As citizen, artist, mother and a child that suffered being separated from my family for eight years, I am concerned about the hundreds of separated children across our country.
Women Fiber Artists Thread the Needle to Create Red Thread Art Studio
By Taima Hervas
The Red Thread Artists Studio artists at soft opening event, February 29, 2024. Eighteen multidisciplinary artists unite to elevate fiber art and create the latest Miami’s artist studio. Photographed (from L to R, leaning on table) Flor Godward, Marcela Ash, Bella Cardim, Debora Rosental, Aurora Molina, Vero Murphy, Angela Bolaños, Marine Fonteyne (L to R standing far end of table) Aida Tejada, Paola Mondolfi, Juliana Torres, Robertha Blatt, Mirele Volkart, Valeria Montag, Flavia Daudt. Not Photographed: Sarah Laing, Anna Biondo and Fernanda Froes. (Photo courtesy of POLMO Studio).
The latest buzz around town is the sound of success emanating from a group of Latin American women artists who have achieved their shared dream with the launch of Red Thread Art Studio Miami.
​
This significant new addition to Miami’s local artist ecosystem will host its grand opening on International Women's Day, Friday, March 8th at 6pm in Coral Gables. The Open Studio will introduce and show the work of 18 female artists, Aida Tejada, Angela Bolaños, Anna Biondo, Bella Cardim, Debora Rosental, Fernanda Froes, Flavia Daudt, Flor Godward, Juliana Torres, Marcela Ash, Marine Fonteyne, Mirele Volkhart, Paola Mondolfi, Robertha Blatt, Sarah Laing, Valeria Montag, and Vero Murphy, all living in Miami, but primarily from Brazil and Argentina, plus Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Cuba, and the United States.
Studio of Aurora Molina adjacent to Red Thread Art Studio plus a larger work area is open to Red Thread artists to host workshops and in the future community events. This space used to be a bank safe years ago and is now Molina’s safe cave. (Photo courtesy of Bruno Macron Weber).
Red Thread Art Studio artists have all been brought together, inspired and empowered by fiber artist Aurora Molina, a fiber art expert, educator, the co-founder of FAMA, Fiber Artists Miami Association, and founder of ”Play Studio Artelier,” a hands on fiber arts educational program with workshops for adults and children, originally launched in 2020 as a Miami Dade County Public Schools Teacher Training Program.
Molina explained that Red Thread Art Studio has grown organically out of FAMA and “Play Studio Artelier” over two years, one day after the next with artists participating in fiber workshops, exploring fiber arts for their own work, and inspired by Molina’s dream to create a collaborative multi-studio space. They have also taken on her higher goal to help elevate fiber art from craft to art.
Molina’s loftier goal to honor fiber art as an art form instead of as a woman’s work technique has historically proven near impossible to achieve, despite a push in the 60’s and 70’s for validation. More recently, as described in the New York Times article, “Fiber Art is Finally Being Taken Seriously,” (September 11, 2023), journalist Julia Halperin and summarized, “Now, as the art world reckons with just how narrow its conception of artistic genius has been, the hierarchy placing art above craft — and intuition above skill — looks ever more gendered and archaic. And in an age when we spend much of our time touching the flat surfaces of screens, this tactile art form feels newly seductive to makers and viewers alike as both a contrast with and a culmination of modern sensory experience.”
Fiber Artist Aurora Molina’s dream of a community fiber art studio crept into her own artwork. Here seen as a feminine concept in her “Las Hilanderas by Diego Velazquez 1657” concept photo for The Bernice Steinbaum Gallery at Art Miami exhibition (2023), photographed in the empty space that was to become Red Thread Artist Studio. Black and white concept photograph. Models are members of FAMA, Fiber Artists of Miami Association (2023). Photographed (from L to R) sitting at loom Fernanda Froes, Gussy Lopez, Paola Mondolphi, Stella Vandermay, Marcela Ash, Angela Bolanos, Aida Tejeda, Sylvia Yapur, standing Gabriella Garca, at sewing machine Aurora Molina, seated on floor Juliana Torres, Evelyn Politzer, and Cynthia Passavanti. (Photo courtesy of David Gary Lloyd).
The dream of a shared collaborative studio space for women artists all connected in some way to fiber art has long haunted Molina, even making unanticipated appearances in her own art. The collective women’s studio dream shone through in a concept piece she did for Bernice Steinbaum Gallery’s Art Miami exhibition (2023). “Las Hilanderas Diego Velazquez 1657” was staged in the large empty office space that would later become Red Thread Art Studio, and for the concept image she brought together as models her fiber art students, many of whom are now part of Red Thread Art Studio.
​
What was to become Red Thread Artist Studio. The raw space, 5000 square feet at 283 Catalonia Avenue, Coral Gables, with workers plastering the ceiling. It took two and a half years to complete with artists collaborating to envision, design, agree on, and finish 18 individual studio spaces ready for Grand Opening on International Women’s Day 2024. (Photo courtesy of Aurora Molina).
Molina approached like-minded FAMA artists who seemed most interested in having a studio space. Those who agreed would help turn the raw space into an artist studio and would become the first cohort. From the start, they agreed to make the studio democratically together as a team. Molina had her eyes on the 5000 square foot empty space adjacent to her own studio and requested the long unused space ‘as is’ so the owners didn’t have to renovate. Next as a team, they planned, shared ideas, then voted on the look of the space, the storage furniture, what expenses were necessary, how the walls would look, whether they wanted solid wood walls or loom like walls where they could weave their own fiber art dividers, perhaps cutting them out and selling later, and starting over again.
The size and pricing of the square footage was calculated and discussed, deemed feasible and agreed on. Where everyone went, the shape of the spaces and with whom they would share space was a step, whether Wi-Fi would be billed to all artists or only those using it, another step. Then the question of who would do the build out. In the long run, it was agreed by all that Molina’s husband, Jan Vandermay’s company Eye Level Services for professional art handling and installation, would recreate what Molina and Vandermay had seen when they had been to Guatemala, a studio with no solid walls, instead choosing a combination of woven and plywood separations.
Annual contracts were agreed upon as the best commitment, where artists could stay on or decide to move without judgment as part of the natural process. An open-door policy, more like a residency than a lifelong commitment. Finally, after two and a half years the raw space was converted into a welcoming, functional, bright and airy multi-studio space for 18 artists.
​
Entering Red Thread Artist Studio with studios for 18 artists studio spaces designed and finished collaboratively by participating artists to accommodate 6, 2, or 1 artist studios. Seen here are loom walls space dividers for fiber artists to weave. (Photo courtesy of Bruna Macron Weber).
Entering Red Thread Art Studio, the first gallery on the right is shared by Aida Tejada, an interdisciplinary artist from the Dominican Republic, and Debora Rosental, an Argentinian fiber artist and weaver, who is also a biochemist and pharmacist interested in nature. For the past two years Tejada and Rosental have examined over 200 local plants native to South Florida and are in the process of publishing a book focused on the natural dyes they have discovered while looking for native dyes for their own fiber art and also to share with other artists.
Tejada shared her feelings about Red Thread, “I believe a lot in community and collaboration and I think our society is always in need of community…It is a wonderful dynamic here, we come from different cultures, each of us brings baggage - ideas, projects - to contribute to each other, I hope that together we can build something and take it out to other communities -- working together to give back to community.”
Across the hall the next studio is the largest space in the Red Thread Art Studio, home to six separate artist studios around a communal area, with a shared worktable and printer. All six artists are Brazilian, friends who met during their MFA program in Miami and all have all been students of Molinas’. Their space is open and inviting but also scrupulously laid out with attention to detail and expertly organized. This group is internally and laughingly nicknamed ‘The Brazilian Girls,’ and includes Brazilian artists Bella Cardim, Robertha Blatt, Fernanda Froes, Flavia Daudt, Mirele Volkart, and Juliana Torres.
Red Thread Artist Studio’s largest shared space with the six individual studios of Brazilian artists all incorporating fiber art into their work. Artists’ Studios of Bella Cardim, Robertha Blatt, Fernanda Froes, Flavia Daudt, Mirelle Volkart, and Juliana Torres. Internally and laughingly referred to as the Brazilian girl’s studio. (From left to right) Artist Juliana Torres, Visitor with Bella Cardim, Mirele Volkart, and Artist Flavia Daudt with visitors. (Photo courtesy of POLMO Studio).
Upon entering you first see the studio of Juliana Torres a contemporary artist from Sao Paolo. Her own old or new photos are almost always the starting point of her work, whether in collage, assemblage, or kinetic mobile art. Her work, she explained, “is all about getting people who are usually excluded from the artistic world a bit closer to the artwork, which is why I use only recycled, at hand materials people can easily identify with as ordinary, and which can be found on a daily basis.” About Red Thread, Torres explained, “We are all here to collaborate, to be inspired by each other, and also be inspired by Molina. We also have a higher, more noble cause…to educate about true fiber art.”
Down the line is Bella Cardim who was a food photographer for 20 years in Rio de Janeiro. When she moved to Miami her husband was in a life-threatening car accident, which led her to use her photography to talk about the damage done to his body, and then of her own struggles, specifically her bulimia and eating disorders. For the Red Thread grand opening Cardim is also displaying her piece, “I will not be ashamed of my body” which she had always envisioned in fiber which is what originally led her to Molina to learn embroidery in fiber art, and she says she has never left.
Across from Cardim is mixed media artist Mirele Volkart, who described herself, “I am from south Brazil, a German city, where my mother and older women taught the girls how to sew and make embroidery, and I learned and was raised with those things. I start with painting and always embroider over it. And I like the result.” She also shows her soft book filled with layers fiber pages, some transparent all embroidered, filled with portraits of her grandmothers, her mother, her sister, her friends, and then there is a portrait of Red Thread Visual Artist Valeria Montag and then one of Molina, both here as part of her family album. It is summarily important. There is something going on here between the Red Thread women that is beyond collaboration, there is love.
Flavia Daudt, is a photographer and mixed media artist using her own photography to create collage focused on nature. She is learning more about fiber art, incorporating weaving and textiles into her work. The Red Thread she says is her first studio and it is a dream come true. She explained, “Everyone here is from some place with Latin roots…Fiber was not part of my work, but now I’m experimenting with fiber. I think we will have a very good exchange of ideas, talents and minds and I think it is good to have a group of bright women working together with a good energy, it is something very different."
Psychologist, educator and interdisciplinary artist Robertha Blatt believes that art should be more available, more democratic and for everybody. Her work is about how the body interacts in a space, and how public places like museums create detachment between the audience and the art. Through therapeutic practices and in museum immersions Blatt invites young visitors to interact with the space, the art and each other. About Red Thread, she said, “I feel very lucky to have met Aurora and to be with other women with a sense of community, of belonging. It is very powerful, and we can create so many things together. Isolation nowadays is a thing that brings sadness and depression, so to be in a place so rich with possibilities is ‘davida’ (a gift). Each of us will feel more alive with vitality because our power will be together.”
Red Thread Art Studio. Visitors enjoying conversation with the artists at the soft opening night, February 29, 2024, Coral Gables. (Photo courtesy of RodrigoGaya.com)
There are 10 other artist studios and artists to meet and learn about, each with a story to tell and work for visitors to see and learn about. A few other artists include, Colombian Fiber Artist Marcela Ash, who summarized her overall impression about Red Thread artists, “I want to say that all the girls working here in this studio have this need, this longing, of what I don’t know, but we are searching, each one has their own way of expressing it…what makes us so special is there is no competition… I’m 60, at my age I have gone through a lot …and I am focusing on women, on a photograph of a lady and her story…a cutout of her story with textiles and embroidery and sewing and words.”
Ash shares the studio with Venezuelan Graphic Designer and Artist Paola Mondolfi, who during Covid started to see discarded chairs she found walking her dog around the neighborhood as objects of memory. She explains her link to Molina, “I met Aurora in a little exhibition I was in and she was looking for someone to do a chair for a children’s educational exhibit. I agreed to help her create a chair which showed how the children in Oaxaca, Mexico, learn to weave…they turn a chair upside down and use the framed base as a loom.” Afterwards, Aurora asked her to come learn about textiles at FAMA and now her work uses fiber art and weaving to help tell the stories of discarded chairs. She says that Aurora has been very important to her.
Two Brazilian artists who have found a home together around the corner from their six friends, are multidisciplinary artist Valeria Montag and Anna Biondo. Montag is using her woven wall partition to display a long narrow photographic artwork she created, she explains, “This for me is the Red Thread Art Studio, this is the most important work that I have, this image of connecting hands forming the human spine, it is about sisterhood, about women not competing against each other and remembering this every day!”
Montag joyfully explains that she is almost 63, and that she has history and stories. She collects things to create multimedia pieces to tell her stories. She shows off a handful of a pig brightly colored by glued on antique Brazil currency bills, called “Porca Miseria, " adding, “I love funny things and playing with the meanings of words.”
Biondo is from Sao Paulo, a fiber artist working in collage, in dry and wet felting. She describes a felt cutout hanging, “this talks about mythology, about men trapped in a cage and birds are outside flying around singing secrets.” She explains what the Red Thread means to her, “Molina is an amazing person, I am so happy. When we arrived here there was just a floor, and we had to do everything. This is a powerful place, each of us has their own work, we have so much to share, we feel our power here.”
In a single studio is Vero Murphy, a mixed media artist from Argentina. She shows work from her latest solo show of November 2023 at MIFA in Doral. She explains, “the materials I work with here are yerba mate and gold because this is about the times of colonization and the idea of two cultures who should have worked together, instead of the violence. They are part of our roots, and we are part of this hybrid...My message is that cultures have to learn from each other, learn from our differences instead of fighting over them.” Murphy brought a different perspective about the Red Thread, she said “Here we are all women, which is powerful but also a challenge for me because I am used to working more with men, so this is different for me, but I love, and trust Aurora and I think it is going to work.”
Interdisciplinary artist and arts educator Angela Bolaños in her studio at Red Thread Studio Miami. She uses embroidery techniques as a way to deepen her ancestral connections. Angela deploys the effervescent energy of bold colors as a tool to create emotional connections between her memories, ideas and concepts and the viewer's personal lens. Artwork: Center “Operculum Colorum Textile,” acrylic, gouache (84”x 35”) (2018). Upper right: “Today’s Yesterday” Gouache, embroidered thread on canvas (28”x 28”)(2024) Lower right: “Denim Dreams: An Americana Story” Denim, gouache, embroidered thread on watercolor paper (30”x22”) (2023) (Photo courtesy of David Gary Lloyd).
Angela Bolaños, Honduran born, and Miami raised, a multidisciplinary artist, museum professional and arts educator chose the space for her solo studio in the farthest, quietest corner of the Red Thread. She described how she uses embroidery techniques as a way to deepen her ancestral connections. From abstract patterns that evoke emotions to nature-inspired motifs, she aims to find balance between an intuitive process that embraces the flow of ideas as well as her need to communicate a specific narrative, often inspired by memories, the passing of time and transcultural identities.
Bolaños went on to explain what the visitors experience will be, and said, “The idea of going into a studio space is to go into the space and see the materials and think, ‘maybe I can do that myself,’ ‘maybe not as well as the artist, but as a way of discovering myself’... for me, as an arts educator and professional artist, this is what I live for and I hope that every single human being allows themselves the opportunity to be creative and to make things with their hands.”
Finally, as the soft opening came to an end, Molina said that she can already envision the near future, with the studio artists hosting their own fiber arts workshops in her Play Studio Artelier, inviting the public into their working studios, and educating the community about fiber art as an art form. Looking even further into the future, Molina dreamed a new dream out loud, and said, ”...there could be expansion to make Red Thread Art Studio a hub for the city where the general community could come into this group’s energy…This is where everything is being born…this will become the hub, and the artist will grow out of the studio into the community.
“It seems like this could be a good time in history to continue to create, advocate and advance fiber arts…to go past the bridge between the craft and the fiber and the art. When you see this professional group of artists move in between mediums, you see that there is a need to come back to the thread… to the thread and the needle as a tool that really speaks…that has something to do with gender…you can grab the thread and needle and you don’t feel like you are a seamstress. We can advance and elevate fiber arts.”