Tabitha Arnold: Art Should Not Be an Investment Vehicle for Rich People
Tabitha Arnold is a socialist textile artist whose work focuses on working-class organizing. In an interview, she discusses her work, how art is warped by wealthy patrons’ dictates, and why artists shouldn’t confuse their art with political organizing.
A section of Picket (2021) by Tabitha Arnold. (Courtesy of artist)
Textile artist Tabitha Arnold is crafting an imagery of class struggle for our time. Arnold’s labor-intensive weavings and rugs draw on the aesthetics of propaganda and social realism to present visions of working-class victory and defeat, and show the hard realities of shop-floor organizing, making collective power their primary subject.
In this interview with Rachel Himes, Arnold speaks about her experiences as a working artist and organizer, how she relates to the art world as a socialist, and the roles art and artists can play in the socialist movement.
Rachel Himes
You’re an artist, an organizer, and, like most of us in the United States today, a worker. Can you speak to how these identities overlap and emerge in your textile and illustration work?
Tabitha Arnold
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