at least y - o - u should know

 

Embroidery is very closely related to painting.  It is constantly changing with every new style each epoch brings.  It is an art and ought to be treated like one, even if thousands upon thousands of sweet female hands- displaying scant skill, no taste or colour sense, and not a hint of inspiration - 'mis'handle quantities of good material as foolishly as possible and call the results embroidery.

Have you no eyes to see what is happening in your own time?  How art now, right now, is going through major revolutions and that soon it will be changed, cleansed and with huge momentum?

Just as it is no longer enough for a painter to just replicate naturalistic little flowers, a still life, a nude, it is essential that in the future embroidery should once again develop a feeling for abstract forms, so that beauty, emotions, spirit and yes, soul will return to it.

Doesn't Japanese embroidery display its own civilization and are not peasant embroideries and folk art the embodiment of feelings executed with primal force?  What qualities!

But you, craftswomen, modern women, who feel that your spirit is in your work, who are determined to lay claim to your rights (economic and moral), who believe your feet are firmly planted in reality, at least y - o - u should know your embroidery work is a documentation of your own era.

Hannah Hoch  wrote this in  1918.