May 3, 2026

NOW AVAILABLE: SYMPOSIUM RECORDINGS

Recordings of the 2026 Project Threadways Symposium are now available. Purchase here to receive a link in your inbox, including presentations from COMOCO’s Stephen Satterfield, textile artist Shradha Kochhar, fashion designer Marwan Pleasant, and many more.

 

Poet Jason McCall kicked off the symposium with original verse inspired by our theme of Regeneration.
It is an honor to share it with all of you.

 

 

A Season to Draw. A Season to Measure. A Season to Cut.
by Jason McCall

When the weather turns, there’s always my wife 
needing me to feel the edge 
of a sleeve or pair of pants. She wants
 
to know if my hands know anything
about thickness, the choices
communicated by fabric and weave.

 

I nod like a man in the Dark
Ages listening to a Latin Mass
I could never translate.
 
I’ve never had a full understanding of clothes
because I’ve always been a slave 
to percentages. 70% off

 

meant I could walk into 7th grade 
with a Hilfiger polo that was sure 
to get me a 10% chance of getting noticed

 

by my bus stop crush. 
A silk shirt in 4th grade meant I had made it
to being equal to my brother and cousins

 

who I’ve been chasing since my feet knew the earth.
My hands never learned how to touch
with care. My hands can’t match needle and thread.

 

My hands can’t wake up an instrument
or put an infant to sleep. 
My first tattoo came from a kiss

given by a hot iron.
Only a laughing god would make a poet
with clumsy hands.

 

This winter, my hands were good for nothing
but carrying my grandfather to the grave
and carrying my father home

 

after surgery and carrying a tally
of how many hands I might have
in my life who would be willing to carry me.

Every season brings a price. Every season
brings a sale. Another rack of arms
and legs to wear when we meet the sun

 

and wind. And every season leaves
a new wrinkle. A wrinkle to be 
met with the hiss

 

of a steamer. A wrinkle to be met with the kiss
of a companion who will always
be thankful for the textures of this world

even when the devotions
of thanks are written in a tongue
too rich for my common hands.