Today we’d like to introduce you to Brecia Kralovic-Logan.
Brecia, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
In March of 2017, I was a part of a team of women who produced the 2nd annual International Women’s Festival Pacific Northwest in Vancouver, Washington. We were there to celebrate International Women’s Day by highlighting women’s accomplishments and also shining a light on the issues that women currently face worldwide. We had invited six vibrant, successful, and engaged women to be our speakers and share their inspiring personal stories.
In telling their stories, several of the speakers revealed that they had experienced some form of sexual abuse. As this theme emerged, the audience was asked if they would stand up if they too had experienced sexual abuse. I watched as 3 out of 4 women stood in that room. At that moment, I knew that I was being called to do something more to help empower women to thrive and to call attention to this overly pervasive and unacceptable abuse. I just wasn’t clear what that would be.
A month later, I attended an international peace conference in Belfast where I met artists who were using their art to call attention to peaceful solutions to conflict. I came away with a commitment to use my unique artistic voice to engage on a much larger scale than ever before. I imagined a collaborative weaving that would be a visual representation of women’s lives from around the world and a catalyst for collaborating on solutions to the challenging issues that women face globally.
Women’s Woven Voices is an international collaborative art project that promotes empowerment for women through writing, weaving and sharing their stories.
The mission of the project is:
To create a woven tapestry based on the stories of 1,000 women globally that will be exhibited internationally to shine a light on the creative accomplishments of women while calling attention to the challenges women currently face world-wide. To foster a culture of self-knowledge and sharing that builds courage and fosters a sense of power in women everywhere to contribute to their communities in positive ways.
To allow women to tell the story of their lives using art as a catalyst for change, particularly by opening up discussions about issues of domestic violence and sexual abuse in a safe and supportive way. And to promote resilience, compassion, open communication, healing and peace in individuals and communities.
This project invites women from around the globe to reflect on what has made them the woman that they are today, write about their life experiences, weave a colorful story cloth and then share their story with others. I am stitching the story cloths together into a collective tapestry and adding a red fringe to the bottom to 3 out of 4 of the strips to promote awareness of the challenges that women face globally including domestic violence and sexual abuse.
When the project is finished, the tapestry will include 400 panels, 1000 story cloths, and be over 170 feet long. Locally the tapestry has been exhibited at the Veterans Museum. I workshop for women to participate in the project and am looking for connections with women from San Diego.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
At this point in the project, I have given out several hundred free loom kits to people who have said that they would like to participate. Now, I’m waiting for the finished story cloths to be returned to me so that I can stitch them into the tapestry.
My goal is to have 300 story cloths by January 1st, 2019. I have had some great help making kits from family and friends and even had a group from the United Cerebral Palsy Association.
We’d love to hear more about what you do.
I am an art activist who believes in the power of art to speak in deep ways and to add another dimension to our awareness of social issues. I work in textiles and text- both are intricately woven into our daily lives… I champion creative living through my coaching services and my book, The Spiral of Creativity- Mastering the Art of a Spirited Life.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I connect Women’s Woven Voices to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for Women and Girls and plan to exhibit the tapestry at the United Nations during a Commission on the Status of Women conference. Women from around the globe are currently participating, and I will be traveling to India next year to engage women there. My dream is to include women from every continent.
Contact Info:
- Address: 4164 Mount Hukee Ave
- Website: www.womenswovenvoices.com
- Phone: 8058963287
- Email: breciakl@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kralovicloganbrecia/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WomensWovenVoices/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Breciacreative
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