Crafting the Radical Imagination w/ Nicole Manganelli and Zak Foster

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.

[00:00:00] Cayden Mak: Welcome to Block and Build a podcast from Convergence Magazine. I’m your host and the publisher of Convergence Caden Mak. On this show, we’re building a roadmap for the movement. That’s working to block the impacts of rising authoritarianism while building the strength and resilience of the broad front that we need to win.

[00:00:24] This week on the show, we’re featuring an interview by our publishing operations manager, Kimmie David, recorded earlier this week about the power of crafts and the communities around them to cultivate radical thought and movement. Her guests include letter press, printer, Nicole Manganelli, who operates the online print shop, radical imprints.

[00:00:40] And who also provided the great swag that new members can earn with a $25 or monthly donation to our summer fund drive. She’s also joined by quilting artists and the host of the crafting community, the Quilting Nook, Zach Foster. But first, these headlines. I’ve got something to say about the Gavin Newsom of it all.

[00:00:57] First of all, for those who’ve missed it, gruesome Newsom’s social media team made the series of posts this week. They were trying to mock, replicate Donald Trump’s social media energy. This has a lot of people on the internet all fluttered because let’s be honest, there’s been a real lack of action on the part of a lot of people in Newsom’s level of leadership that we could really use right now.

[00:01:16] Plenty of other people are gleefully pointing out how shitty he’s been on a lot of key issues. Basically a neoliberal centrist who’s happy to let a lot of authoritarian light policy slide because they look good to his donors or something. I guess I’m of several minds about this. First of all, I wanna encourage state governors and other people with positions of power to see themselves as part of a broad front against authoritarian consolidation.

[00:01:40] We need them to be part of this. We don’t have to work directly with them or even like them. But their power validation and reach actually does matter in the life or death fight that we’re in. But also back that shit up with doing something. State governors have a lot of power from their state’s budget to their bully pulpit.

[00:01:58] Newsom has been doing a pretty bad job of using his trying to Outtrump Trump is not part of that. Part of the reason Trump’s playbook works for him is that he’s effectively laundered his image as someone who isn’t contained, isn’t controlled, and certainly isn’t managed by a team of handlers who determine what, when and how he posts.

[00:02:18] And finally. And this is also part of the bigger conversation that we need to get into at some point about retaliatory dis redistricting. I’m really nervous about the end game here. If we don’t have a long-term strategy, an endlessly escalating war of more of the same is just gonna produce more of the same, more demagogues, more distrust in democratic institutions and processes.

[00:02:40] More resentment, more on-ramps to authoritarianism. I’m not saying that we need to sit down and break bread with the fash far from it. What I am saying is that we need to provide transformative solutions to structural problems, and we need to be for real about it. One thing that actually does help is addressing the real pain points that people experience in the existing system and talking with them about why those pain points exist and what might alleviate them.

[00:03:05] Organizing. Anyway, my TLDR is that Gavin Newsom’s comms team is cringe, but don’t let it carry you away from the bigger goals and the hard work of actually standing up to the fascists that’s happening all over the place. From Boston to dc to Austin, to la, and everywhere in between. I also wanna provide an update on our story that we headlined a few weeks ago about Atlanta area journalist Mario Guevara, who’s been in ice detention since being detained while covering the No Kings Pro protests back in June.

[00:03:32] Last Wednesday, a team of attorneys filed a motion in federal court demanding his immediate release. They argue that his detention is a politically motivated active government censorship and that his first and fifth Amendment rights are being violated. Furthermore, records obtained by the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office showed emails directly from a representative of ICE seeking any information that would quote, fight his bond request.

[00:03:54] The office offered to do them one better replying quote. I will also send over all the synopsis we have for all interactions that we’ve had for him. In other words, this sure does feel like an attempt by two government agencies to conspire, to lock up and deny due process to a journalist they consider a political enemy.

[00:04:11] I’m not a fancy lawyer. What do I know? We’ll continue to keep an eye on Mario’s case, but definitely recommend that you catch up with the full details that were reported this week by Sam Barnes in the Georgia Recorder. We’ll put a link to that story in the show notes.

[00:04:38] I wanna take a moment now to ask you to support convergence during our annual summer fund drive. Reader and listener support is critical in a time when independent media is under existential threat. So if this podcast has in fact helped consider what you can give back to make sure that we can keep making it.

[00:04:53] Anyone who starts an annual or monthly subscription gives $25 or more, or upgrades their existing subscription will receive a special thank you gift. Head over to Bitly slash Summer Fund Drive, all one word to make your contribution today. You can also find that link in the show notes this week. I’m happy to share an interview recorded earlier by our publishing operations manager, Kimmie David, about how different forms of artisanal crafting can uplift and build community for radical politics.

[00:05:20] Her guests include letterpress, printer and operator of the shop, radical imprints, Nicole Manganelli and host of the Maker Community, the Quilty Nook. Zach Foster. Nicole was an organizer from 2012 to 2021 working as a member leader of a base building organization in Maine. During that time, she also happened to be learning how to make letterpress prints when those two paths intersected, radical imprints was the result.

[00:05:42] The goal of her printmaking is to nourish organizers with fierce and beautiful words that keep them invested in movement work for the long haul. Zach Foster is a community taught artist whose work draws on southern textile traditions and repurposed fabrics. He’s especially drawn in his work to preserving the stories and history stitched into quilts.

[00:06:00] His work has been featured on the Red Carpet of the Met Gala, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as various magazines, websites, and galleries. His book is, the World Needs Your Next Quilt, and he hosts a maker community called the Quilty Nook, which seeks to connect and inspire quilters and makers all over the world.

[00:06:16] I hope you enjoy their conversation.

[00:06:22] Kimmie David: Zach, thank you for joining me today. Nicole, thank you for joining me today as well. Welcome to Block and Build. We are talking about how craft. It seems like an unlikely method for fighting rising authoritarianism. I’m so excited to talk to both of you about this today. I would love if you just center our listeners on who you are, where you are in the world, on the spectrum of identities.

[00:06:50] Zach, do you wanna kick us off? 

[00:06:52] Zak Foster: Sure. First of all, thank you so much for having me on this show. I was, I’m a semi-professional porch sitter, especially when I drink coffee in the morning, and I was just. Daydreaming about all the questions and things that we’re gonna get into, and so I’m just, I’m really looking forward to it.

[00:07:04] My name is Zach Foster. I am a quilt maker and a community gatherer, and a storyteller and a memory keeper. I’m a queer person. I’m a cis male. I’m white. 

[00:07:15] Nicole Manganelli: Sounds 

[00:07:15] Kimmie David: good, Nicole. 

[00:07:17] Nicole Manganelli: Yeah. Also thank you so much for asking me to do this. I’m really looking forward to this conversation with both of you. My name’s Nicole Manganelli.

[00:07:25] I use she and her for pronouns. I am based in Portland, Maine which is Unseeded Waki territory. And I’m a queer, femme, white letterpress printer about in the world. 

[00:07:41] Kimmie David: Amazing. Nicole Letterpress. Can you historically just contextualize that for us in America and how does that show up in your activism?

[00:07:54] Nicole Manganelli: Sure. Yeah. So I don’t, I, as I was prepping for this, I was like, I don’t know. A ton about the history of it in the US but I do know globally. And then I also know con some contemporary history, right? So and just to start with basics, letterpress printing is a type setting. It’s like using metal and wood movable type to handset words.

[00:08:19] And you can also use. Images and stuff to then put in printing presses and print them. It generally leaves an impression in the paper, although if you talk to the folks who did job work commercially a long time ago, it’s supposed to be a kiss on the paper of the ink to the paper, not a bite. But the kids love the bite, so that’s what we do sometimes.

[00:08:39] So the. The way people talk about the history of letterpress printing and movable type, they often start with Johannes Gutenberg and the printing of the Gutenberg Bible, which was in like the mid 14 hundreds common era completely erasing the fact that. Movable type was actually created in China, like 400 to 450 years before this using baked clay tiles.

[00:09:05] And then there were several hundred years in which metal movable type was actually used primarily in Korea before it came to Europe. So surprise. We have a very white. Colonial Eurocentric story of where letterpress printing comes from. So it feels important to like always actually start where the story starts instead of where people start partway through.

[00:09:29] And then I will also say in terms of the US and more contemporary history of letterpress, the, we have this sort of romanticized ideal of letterpress printing that you’re, you’re working with this beautiful old wood type and metal type on these beautiful old presses, a lot of which date to like between the 19th and 20th century.

[00:09:52] And isn’t that amazing and beautiful and yes, it is. And also letter presses a tool, right? These presses were a tool. And so they have been used historically not. Just by folks on our side, right? There’s a beautiful, vibrant, ongoing history, which I hope that I am some small part of using letterpress for social movement work and using it as a way to claim public space and shift narratives.

[00:10:23] And also historically letterpress was also used to like print, wanted posters for formerly enslaved people in the us. So like I think especially, and especially at the white letterpress printer, it feels really important to me to like anchor. The way that we talk about letterpress in the fact that it is a tool that has been used in a myriad of ways, and I feel like that means that we have even more of a responsibility to use it in service of collective liberation now, while also being honest about what its history is.

[00:11:04] So 

[00:11:05] Kimmie David: a hundred percent amazing. Yeah. The wanted posters. I think. Zach, you recently had your first gallery showing for Southern White Amnesia, which is your quilt story of your family. And tell us a bit about that and how quilting situate us in quilting in America or globally as Nicole has. 

[00:11:27] Zak Foster: Quilting is a craft that, at least in the American context.

[00:11:32] Epitomizes collectivity and community, at least in the nostalgic notions that we have of our history in this country. The interesting thing that’s happened over the last few decades is that. It’s become less and less of a collective activity and more and more of an individual activity. So now when you think about what’s happening in the quilt world is individuals making an entire quilt from start to finish, which is a stark departure from how it’s been in the past.

[00:12:01] Traditionally, if we’re gonna paint with broad strokes, folks, usually women would spend the winter when they had more downtime. The hours were darker, the needs were fewer in the field, they could. Piece together a quilt, and that would be an individual activity, right? That’s something one person can do to sew together all those tiny squares and triangles.

[00:12:21] But then when it came time for quilting, they would often have the quilting bee that so many people have heard of, and that would be, they would set up a frame in someone’s yard under a big sprawling shade tree somewhere. Several folks would gather around, pull up chairs, and just quilt all day. You could crank out an entire quilt in a day that way the kids would be playing underneath.

[00:12:40] The men folk would be out there playing music, smoking, whatever it was. They’d have a big meal and it was. It was a collective community party. Now, are we seeing that anymore? Not in the same way because it has become. More of an individualist thing, but of course with social media, that brings us together in a, in another way.

[00:13:00] In another way, I would like to see us somehow find ways to return to the collective ways of making together. That is one of my overarching lifetime goals of exploring a quilt. Making quilts have long been viewed as. Objects of comfort, objects of warmth, symbols of domesticity. They are, I like to say that they represent the most private part of the most private room of our homes, right?

[00:13:30] Who gets to see your bed? Not just anybody that happens to come over, right? So there’s this real intimacy that comes with quilting that I think is a secret power when I think of. What draws me to work with quilts and especially the Southern White Amnesia Collection, is that if I tell someone I’m a quilt maker, 100% of the time this, it never fails.

[00:13:56] They’re like, oh, yeah, my grandma used to do that. Or, we have one in the closet, or dah. Like every so many folks here in the US have some kind of first, second, or third hand connection with quilting. Which means they think they know what it’s about, right? And when we think we know what something is, our guard that sometimes comes up whenever we experience a new concept is allowed to relax.

[00:14:22] And then this is where the cult maker can get sneaky. Because with that guard that’s relaxed, we can slip in trues that need to be entered into the conversation. And an object that looks like something your grandma would’ve made. Not that your grandma wasn’t revolutionary. She very well could have been.

[00:14:38] But it is that power of a soft object to be durable, comfortable, and quietly subversive. 

[00:14:47] Kimmie David: Yeah. There’s something about stitching especially, but also I think letter press printing together, where when you’re doing something with your hands, you’re not. Worried about what your face looks like. You are focused, but you don’t have to be super, super focused and you’re in community.

[00:15:06] So I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea of consistency and craft and how gathering consistently is like the slow and steady way to introduce these ideas to people who may not be comfortable just being told what to think. Because who wants to be told what to think? So Nicole, I would love to hear more about your letter press in service of people who are doing social justice work.

[00:15:40] Nicole Manganelli: Yeah, totally. That is what I absolutely love to do when those two things intersect. I started learning how to letterpress print in 2012 around the same time that I started to learn about organizing. And so I ended up spending about nine years at a base building organization in Maine. And doing like racial and economic justice work and organizing.

[00:16:04] And alongside that, I was learning this craft year after year. And so it was like really natural that those two things intersected and that there was tremendous community in that. Like at the beginning I was printing posters for protests and rallies and also, talking with folks about the messages that we felt like we wanted to have out in the world.

[00:16:28] And that kind of. Collectivity like, yes, typesetting now is also a pretty like individualist activity. But I belong to a community print shop here called Pickwick Independent Press. They’re wonderful. The owner of Pickwick, Pilar Nadal is like indelibly generous and has created a space where, people talk to each other about their work.

[00:16:54] And over the years I. I think I started as a member there in 2015 or 2016. I have watched folks get politicized over that time too, or like more radicalized through like sharing and talking about. Stuff in the shop when we happen to encounter each other. We’re both there working on things at the same time.

[00:17:17] Or Pickwick also started this program that has the best name ever, which is printers without Margins. That like you love a poem, offers. Oh my God, yes. Ugh. It’s like my dream to be surrounded by a good punting people, punting people, but that offers like free and low cost printing for movement organizations like locally.

[00:17:41] Kimmie David: No that’s beautiful because community is something especially in the pandemic in COVID times. Which are not over. And that’s another thing to balance with how do we gather. In a way that’s respectful of disabilities of our community, who are actually our community, and where can we make craft accessible even as we want to be in community, in person.

[00:18:07] That’s not always possible. Zach, your community quilting nook and your podcast Sea Side more, more puns. Has been, I’m a member and it’s been such a wonderful way to get to know quilters from all over the world. Would you talk a bit more about, about your community and how you nurture that community and propagate the ideas of building, building such community 

[00:18:37] Zak Foster: now?

[00:18:37] The Nook has been one of the biggest surprises of my life. I started going just about four years ago now, and to me it’s a testament of the dynamic of attracts right? So I think people see me on Instagram, they hear the kinds of stories I’m telling. They hear the, they see the kinds of quilts I’m making and they’re like, something that I’m doing resonates with them.

[00:18:59] And then I think what happens next is, oh, if I resonate with him, maybe I’ll resonate with the other folks in Quilty Nook. Can they hear me talk about that? And so when I can say that Nook has been one of the biggest surprises of my life is that when I first started an online community, and now we have about 1500 members, which is incredible I assume that there would be, have to be a certain, allow a certain amount of policing, right?

[00:19:22] That like there would be toes that get stepped on. People would say something that was hurtful and we’d have to do mitigate and that’s only happened once in four years. It goes back to like attracts like, I think I try very hard to be intentionally kindness forward, conviction forward and holding space forward.

[00:19:41] And I think that resonates with folks. And so the Nook is one of those pathways I’m exploring of that lifelong question is how do we make this once collective, craft collective again in 2025 and beyond is working remarkably well. I. My philosophy with technology is that the highest aim of technology should be to bring us back together in real time and real space in as much as possible.

[00:20:05] And so in the last couple years, we’ve begun doing more and more work in that direction because I feel like that’s where the magic can really happen. The magic of technology is that things happen fast. The magic of being in real life together is that things happen deeply. And so I want to get people together.

[00:20:22] For retreats that we’re doing a couple times a year now called huddles, just, cute and cozy. We just sit and sew. And then we also have things called local pods, which is encouraging those, 1500 members to find the closest people to them and to begin to organize their own gatherings, whatever that may look like.

[00:20:36] And that’s totally outside of my hands at that point, what they end up doing, but it’s building. I view my role as building the infrastructure that allows other people to build their own infrastructure and continue building the world that we wanna see together. 

[00:20:50] Kimmie David: Yeah, I definitely see craft as this model for or other, this way of modeling what organizing can look like.

[00:20:59] What can it look like? I started doing this open home Fridays thing at my house which is very tiny. I’m in New York and it’s like 400 square feet and I’m just, my home is open on Fridays, people come. People hang out and I think their age range is like 19 to 45, 50. And it’s just random people I’ve met in my neighborhood and I’ve watched those people watch me and my partner like fight, have a discussion.

[00:21:30] And are actively like watching us model this behavior. And craft is such a beautiful way to have an instruction, right? We’re sowing, we’re quilting this quilt, we’re printing these broadsides for this rally. How does that then show people how to regulate?

[00:21:51] Zak Foster: I think it creates a little space.

[00:21:53] If I could offer a first pass at that question. So much like the kinds of conversations the three of us are having right now are face-to-face, they’re human to human. Windcraft is involved. All of a sudden there’s an intermediate object, right? There’s a quilt between us. There’s a printing press between us, right?

[00:22:10] There’s something that can absorb some of the friction that may come up in conversation, some of the questions, some of the differences we may hold, and it’s that safe space that craft creates through that object. It would be my first pass at that question. 

[00:22:24] Nicole Manganelli: Yeah. Listening to the two of you talk, I was thinking about this thing that I think about quite a lot actually, which is that a spirit of generosity is really an organizing skill.

[00:22:36] Like being able to approach folks with warmth and a generosity that like. The folks around me don’t have to have the identical politics that I do I think how we bring people in and bring people along in social movements is by providing a pretty wide range of entry points.

[00:23:00] And I think craft can be one of those. And I think being ready for those entry points, like when they come up, because often it’s really, it can be really in really unexpected places. And I, I have met folks who have been doing letterpress printing for decades and who like, after we printed some posters for a rally, went to their first protest.

[00:23:23] And there’s stuff that if we like, the point of organizing is that we are more connected to each other, right? Not that we’re like right all the time about everything and have all the right language about everything all the time. I don’t, I’m not interested in that. I’m not. Is interesting considering words are my medium.

[00:23:42] They’re really important to me. Yes. I think we should be very conscious of them and I think that, relaxing a little bit into the complexity of human experience and being willing to like work with that however it shows up in craft spaces feels really critical to me. 

[00:24:00] Zak Foster: I just wanna say amen.

[00:24:01] And I think that as someone whose work also often centers text, almost everything I make does. I also recognize that text is an imperfect excuse me. Language is an imperfect thing with tons of constraints, tons of room for misunderstanding. And until we develop skills of telepathy across the board, we’re stuck with words.

[00:24:20] They’re just like the next best thing we got, but we can’t do better. I don’t know how we get to telepathy, but words are important and they’re flawed at the same time. 

[00:24:28] Nicole Manganelli: Yeah. Absolutely 

[00:24:30] Kimmie David: amazing. I think this is a perfect talking about words. Nicole and I designed a letter. Press print.

[00:24:36] Nicole, would you describe it to our listeners who aren’t on video? Nicole and I developed this letter. Press print for convergence. 

[00:24:42] Nicole Manganelli: Yeah, so the text says this is a home for radical imaginations. And we used a process which I used a process in printing it, which is called a Blind Deboss, where you actually print without ink to create the impression in the paper and.

[00:25:00] The words are in the middle of a keyhole shape to emphasize the idea of home and finding that a lot of places, and it’s actually the c from the convergence logo that’s turned on its side and manipulated so that it. It forms the keyhole. Yes. Such like to work on that with you Kimmie.

[00:25:20] Yes, we do. Yeah. 

[00:25:21] Kimmie David: And that is a print y’all can get by supporting convergence as subscribers. We’ll drop the link in the show notes. How can people who are not in craft how would you suggest if they’re interested. That they get started, or basically like for folks who are intrigued by what we said, what is a next step?

[00:25:43] What is a, what is some advice you have for action instead of accumulation, you have the stash. What are you doing with it? 

[00:25:54] Zak Foster: You’re cutting it up and you’re using it today. Use that good fabric today, folks. I would say for anyone who wants to get started with quilting is an incredibly lowercase d Democratic.

[00:26:05] Activity, right? Like you can start with a worn out piece of clothing that you have and a needle and thread and you’re ready to quilt, right? Like you could, the entry point is really low, which is wonderful. It’s beautiful that way. And so just start playing. There’s this sense that to quilt, you gotta know all these rules and you gotta be, there’s a level of perfection that’s important but unattainable for most of us. I would just say, just start sowing. Like in the beginner’s mind they say, there’s just so many options in the expert’s mind. There’s only one. So if you have never quilted, just start. And I would love to see what you come up with because I’m so often inspired by the work of people who are, don’t know what they’re doing, quote unquote.

[00:26:46] Of course, I’m gonna shout out the nook. We got lots of folks there that would love to talk to you about quilting, if you’re interested in that. And I got a book too. If folks are looking for, a something you can hold in your hand called The World Needs Your Next Quilt. And the idea behind that book is that the world truly does that.

[00:27:01] The historical life ways that have converged in me as a person or converged in you as a person are unique and undefeated. So you have something to say that no one else in this world can say in exactly the same way. And so whether you’re making a quilt or you’re gonna print something on a press, or you’re doing any number of other things, the world needs you to do that thing.

[00:27:23] And so with this book, I walk us through quilting specifically and how every stage of a game, from picking fabrics to how we sew it together, to how we bind it, to how we quilt it to, to how we display it, how all of that. Can strengthen our narrative that we wanna share with the world, the narrative that only we can.

[00:27:41] And so you can find that, of course, maybe in the show notes below, or definitely on zach foster.com. 

[00:27:46] Nicole Manganelli: And I would say, the, these presses that we use are very big and very heavy a lot of the time. And it’s not as accessible of a craft as others are, but I would.

[00:28:00] I would say look around, you look with fresh eyes at the printmaking happening around you. Print makers are everywhere. I would even just Google Letterpress and your local area and see what comes up. There’s a lot of little independent shops all over the place. And I think a lot of folks.

[00:28:22] In part because their experiences into letterpress through starting in its re resurgence as like an art form. In the late 1990s, like a lot of folks, especially like. Women, queer people of color trans and non-binary folks like didn’t, I think, feel super welcome in letterpress spaces in that moment.

[00:28:47] Like I think it was a field and a craft that was super dominated by like older cis white men for a long time. And. I think the folks that have now developed that skillset are really adamant about trying to bring people in a way that is like warm and welcoming. Yeah, reach out. If you folks can reach out to me, I’m happy to connect you to people that I know and letterpress circles, and also just look around you with fresh eyes.

[00:29:14] And if you see somebody on Instagram who’s doing letterpress work that you really love, tell them. Reach out and say, I’m trying to figure out how to get started with this. What do you recommend? 

[00:29:24] Zak Foster: Yeah. And maybe support ’em by buying one of their prints. Yes, totally. If you can, if you got that loose change, they’d appreciate it.

[00:29:31] Yeah. Yep. 

[00:29:33] Kimmie David: Amazing. Thank you all so much for joining us today. It’s been lovely. For me to step into this role at Convergence of Publishing and so I do all the illustrations for the magazine and stuff is heavy. Things can be really heavy, but having an outlet for.

[00:29:53] Processing all of the feelings going on in this world, turning that outward, bringing us all into community. I am really looking forward to connecting with other radical crafters out there in the internet and in person. Thank you both so much for joining us today. 

[00:30:12] Nicole Manganelli: Thanks so much for having me.

[00:30:15] Zak Foster: Absolutely my pleasure. Thank you, Kimmie. 

[00:30:19] Cayden Mak: My thanks again to guest Nicole Manganelli and Zach Foster for joining this episode and of course Kimmie David for hosting them. You’ll find links to both their works and projects in the show notes. This show is published by Convergence, a magazine for Radical Insights.

[00:30:32] I’m Caden Mock, and our producer is Josh Stro. Kimmie David designed our cover art, and if you have something to say, please do drop me a line. You can send me an email that will consider running on an upcoming mailbag episode at [email protected]. And finally, of course, if you would like to support the work that we do at Convergence, bringing our movements.

[00:30:50] Together to strategize, struggle, and win in this crucial historical moment. You can become a [email protected] slash donate. Even a few bucks a month goes a long way to making sure our independent small team can continue to build a map for our movements. I hope this 

[00:31:05] helps.