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The Hidden Women’s Stories in Artisan Textiles

In 2015, Susan Hull Walker founded the Ibu Movement which works with women artisans around the world to preserve and uplift the cultural arts, the heritage skills and the community stories that are carried in their crafts.
Pat Mitchell

Pat Mitchell

5 Min Read

Women in Pakistan with their embroidery.

To kick off 2022, I wrote my first newsletter on the importance of finding — and spreading — joy in these difficult times, reflecting on the life’s work of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his belief that joy can be found in a life of serving others, in fighting for justice, in leading from a moral compass and an unshakeable faith.

This week, I am thinking about a different kind of joy. The joy of creation and the joy that comes from appreciating and sharing beauty, culture and community.

Susan Hull Walker went on a journey to find all of that… and then to find a way to share it. In 2015, she founded the Ibu Movement which works with women artisans around the world to preserve and uplift the cultural arts, the heritage skills and the community stories that she found in her travels. 

Today, the Ibu Movement collaborates with more than 100 groups of artisans in 40 countries offering a path to financial self-sufficiency for the artisans via a website, a bricks and mortar store and pop-up shops.

“I’m humbled by the trusting, reciprocal relationships Ibu has with women around the world. These artisans count on Ibu for work, and we count on them to bring the world the finest of their craft,” says Susan.

In many cases, these uniquely handmade textiles and jewelry are created with skills that the Western world has lost or devalued. Most importantly, they also carry women’s stories that might otherwise be lost to history. 

Susan with artisans from the BeadWORKS collective in Kenya.

It was that — the stories that Susan uncovered when sitting with and working with the beading collectives, the textile weavers, the glass etchers, the bone jewelry makers — that propelled her to leave her first calling as a minister to pursue this mission. She had studied world religions at Harvard Divinity School and served as a minister in Maine, San Francisco, and Charleston, SC. 

But, she says, it was her study of textiles that opened her eyes to something she was missing as a minister…a woman’s way of recording her mind and her soul. What she didn’t find in sacred texts written by men, she found in textiles — spun, woven, dyed and embellished — by women. 

She returned to school to study fiber arts, learning to weave and interpret the languages of cloth, and then she went searching for that language and the stories that artisans were sharing in their craft.

Textiles, she realized, have been for centuries a woman’s text. 

Susan with a textile embroiderer in Chiapas, Mexico.
Saina, left, overseeing the sampling of her design at the BeadWORKS Center in Kenya.

“Before I began this work,” says Saranto, a member of the BeadWORKS collective in Kenya, “I relied solely on my husband. I was sitting at home with nothing. Since joining BeadWORKS, I have my own source of income and can decide what I want for my family. I feel like I am a queen in my own household. I support my husband. I pay for school, buy food, dress well — I am supporting the whole family. I’m in a very different place.”

The Ibu Collective includes over 10,000 women artisans. The Ibu design team collaborates with 50 groups of artisans to create unique designs for Ibu, and for the other 50 design groups, Ibu serves as a global distributor at its online store — ibumovement.com — and in the flagship Ibu shop on King Street in Charleston, S.C.

Allies in over 200 countries come to the Ibu website, and over 35,000 allies in the movement (followers, customers, donors) lend support to the Ibu Movement. Susan also writes an email newsletter, Ibulliance, highlighting the beautiful creations and the perspectives of artisans each week. You can sign up for the newsletter at the Ibu Movement website. (Scroll down and click “Join the Movement.”)

Susan with a textile artisan in Indonesia.

Ibu is a Malay word, an honorific for a woman, addressing her with respect, and recently, Susan has honored me by inviting me to be a Global Ambassador for the Ibu Movement. As I am committed to elevating women’s work at every opportunity — and yes, I do love wearing and purchasing the work of artisans — becoming an ambassador for Ibu artisans is a privilege…and like Susan, I find joy in sharing their creations and stories.

“When a woman turns her language of craft into livelihood,” says Susan. “When she reaches independence, seizes choice, finds respect; when she leads a village, sends her daughter to school; and joins other women around the world in rising up, there is joy. That’s what the Ibu Movement is all about. Joy on the move. The women who make and wear Ibu work hard, walk proud and earn their way in the world. Beauty matters. Joy wins!”
 

Onward!

-Pat

 

P.S. – To celebrate and introduce Ibu to those who haven’t yet discovered it, Susan is offering a 15% discount for those who shop women’s artisan goods here in the next two weeks! Use the code PatMitchell15 at checkout. Enjoy!

Author(s)

  • Pat Mitchell

    Pat Mitchell is a lifelong advocate for women and girls. At every step of her career, Mitchell has broken new ground for women, leveraging the power of media as a journalist, an Emmy award-winning and Oscar-nominated producer to tell women’s stories and increase the representation of women onscreen and off. Transitioning to an executive role, she became the president of CNN Productions, and the first woman president and CEO of PBS and the Paley Center for Media. Today, her commitment to connect and strengthen a global community of women leaders continues as a conference curator, advisor and mentor. In partnership with TED, Mitchell launched TEDWomen in 2010 and is its editorial director, curator and host. She is also a speaker and curator for the annual Women Working for the World forum in Bogota, Colombia, the Her Village conference in Beijing, and the Women of the World (WOW) festival in London. In 2017, she launched the Transformational Change Leadership Initiative with the Rockefeller Foundation focused on women leaders in government and civil society. In 2014, the Women’s Media Center honored Mitchell with its first-annual Lifetime Achievement Award, now named in her honor to commend other women whose media careers advance the representation of women. Recognized by Hollywood Reporter as one of the most powerful women in media, Fast Company’s “League of Extraordinary Women” and Huffington Post’s list of “Powerful Women Over 50,” Mitchell also received the Sandra Day O'Connor Award for Leadership. She is a contributor to Enlightened Power: How Women Are Transforming the Practice of Leadership, and wrote the introduction to the recently published book and museum exhibition, 130 Women of Impact in 30 Countries. In 2016, she served as a congressional appointment to The American Museum of Women’s History Advisory Council. She is writing a memoir, Becoming a Dangerous Woman: Embracing a Life of Power and Purpose, that will be published in 2019. Mitchell is active with many nonprofit organizations, serving as the chair of the boards of the Sundance Institute and the Women’s Media Center. She is a founding member of the VDAY movement and on the boards of the Skoll Foundation and the Acumen Fund. She is also an advisor to Participant Media and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mitchell is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia and holds a master's degree in English literature and several honorary doctorate degrees. She and her husband, Scott Seydel, live in Atlanta and have six children and 13 grandchildren.