Welcome to The Weaver, a newsletter by me, Joanna Wolfarth.
Here, I weave together ideas from motherhood, art, nature, feminist histories of power, and the texture of everyday life. This is a space for curiosity, slow thinking, and creative connection.
The name The Weaver comes from one of my favourite images of parenthood — a 6th-century Indonesian bronze sculpture of a woman feeding her baby while working at her loom. I return to it often. It reminds me that care and creativity aren’t separate pursuits, but interwoven. I see something new in it with every encounter.
So much of my writing happens in snatches of time between lecturing and family life. Putting my notebook to one side to feed a baby, pausing as I type to help my child rescue an errant football. For a long time, I worried about my divergent mind, which meanders across multiple disciplines. But now I see the beauty in my ability to weave together threads from different disciplines, and between the personal and the cultural.
There is a well-known Cambodian proverb which I treasure:
ផ្លូវវៀចកុំបោះបង់ which translates to don’t abandon the indirect road.
This newsletter follows that path.
What You’ll Find Here
The Weaver is a place for exploratory essays, fragments, and reflections. You’ll also find thoughts on the writing process, the challenges of creative practice alongside caregiving, and updates on any workshops, publications, or teaching.
Each month, I host Thread & Thought, a live one-hour Zoom session for paid subscribers. In these workshops, we explore visual art around a chosen theme, followed by gentle creative prompts to inspire your own writing or reflection. It’s a low-pressure space for creative connection and community. No experience necessary.
If you are interested in what I’ve been reading, especially around exploring parenthood, you can find a my recommendations on Bookshop.org (*aff link).
About me
I’m an art historian, lecturer and writer. For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated by how we make sense of our worlds through making things and telling stories. I'm a specialist in Southeast Asian art history and currently teach at The Open University.
Parenthood gave me the confidence to make a creative shift away from academic writing. During maternity leave, I pitched a personal essay to the Wellcome Collection, on my experiences of breastfeeding alongside cultural histories of infant feeding. The essay soon expanded into a book proposal. That book, MILK: An Intimate History of Breastfeeding, was published in January 2023, to very positive reviews and national press.
I now write nonfiction exploring cultural histories, memoir, feminism, our relationships to landscape, and more. My writing has been published in many outlets, including The Observer, History Today and Wellcome Stories. I am co-editor of the book ASIA-ART-ACTIVISM.
Why Subscribe?
Subscribing gets you access to a portion of each new essay, plus newsletter updates, straight to your inbox. I promise not to spam you with loads of mail, and I will never, ever pass on your information to anyone.
…and why upgrade to a paid subscription?
This gives you access to all my writing and full essays, as well as access to the Thread & Thought community. This means you can join the monthly live Zoom workshops which combine visual art and creative prompts, plus recommended readings and the Subscriber Chat for conversation, creative prompts, and community. ‘
I also offer creative mentorship, editorial services and more. Founding members of The Weaver get 1 hour of creative mentorship annually (split into 1x60 or 2x30 minute sessions). Or you can visit www.joannawolfarth.com for more information on how to work with me.
If you like my work in one form or another, a paid subscription is a wonderful way to support it and to give me the time and space to keep doing it.
To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.
Welcome to The Weaver. I'm so glad you’re here.
