“SOCIAL FABRIC”

February 13 – March 28, 2026

Special Effects is excited to announce the opening of “Social Fabric”, featuring NedRa Bonds (Kansas City, MO), Hadley Clark (Kansas City, MO), Poppy Delta Dawn (Lawrence, KS), Jillian Guthrie (Kansas City, MO),Jen Harris (Cleveland, OH), Linda Jurkiewicz (Kansas City, MO), Carlos Rolón (Chicago, IL), and Sonié Joi Thompson-Ruffin (Kansas City, MO).

Social Fabric is a group exhibition of fiber-based artists, each whose work is invested in and bringing visibility to a wide breadth of social issues including identity, civil liberties, environmentalism, and feminism. These artists integrate fresh approaches to traditional processes and materials with contemporary aesthetics and reflections on their concerns and lived experience. They demonstrate the fiber arts as a space beyond function, promoting progressive idealogies and dialogue.

NedRa Bonds is a quilter, activist, and retired teacher. Her work is a vehicle to teach and preserve history, and promote social justice. She continues a legacy of narrative quiltmaking that reflects on an intersection of issues of human rights, race, women, politics, the environment and her own personal health challenges.

Hadley Clark’s ‘Thank You’ bags ask the viewer to consider the responsibility of producing consumer waste. The transparent fabric bags, which reference single-use plastic bags, self-contain their own waste, rendering visible the remnants and material waste created in the making of the bag. Hadley’s practice in general gives new life to discarded material and brings focus to the environmental impact of overconsumption and fast-fashion.

Poppy Delta Dawn contributes two works to the exhibition, “Burned” and “Knot”. In “Burned”, Dawn addresses our relationship to technology and the land and the expanding American Empire. “Knot” considers issues of freedom  and automony. Both ultilize the imagery of the archer, a symbol Poppy uses to represent the marginalized under attack.

Jen Harris creates abstractions that hybridize painting and weaving, embracing notions of paradox, multiplicities, and queer embodiment. These works transform the canvas, which typically serves as an inert support to a painting, into an integral component of the object’s imagery, disrupting the assumed hierarchy and bringing the fiber to the forefront. Jen’s work calls established structures into question, introducing elements of pattern, color, and imagery that pay homage to queer, occult and abstract histories.

Linda Jurkiewicz’s practice asks viewers to re-examine feminine roles in American culture and nostalgia. Using recycled materials and the language of “women’s work”, she tells the stories of women, situated in the cultural context of the time periods in which they lived. These narratives are often delivered with both directness and humor, using textile processes like embroidery, applicque, sewing, and weaving.

 Jillian Guthrie has been beading the words “I moved on her like a bitch”, quoting President Donald Trump, on the American Flag in protest since the inauguration of his second presidency. Demonstrating publicly and sharing her progress on Instagram to 28 thousand followers while playing protest songs, Jillian’s performance and time intensive labor is a commitment to visibility of a truth about the United States and Patriarchy.

Carlos Rolón’s work spans a variety of materials and often incorporates elements of social practice. The piece included in Social Fabric is a study for a series of works Rolón created out of tarps used to shelter victims of hurricanes in Puerto Rico. 10-15% of the proceeds from the sale of the Tarp series go to Protechos, a Puerto-Rican based nonprofit that rebuilds damaged roofs in underserved communities throughout the island.

Sonié Joi Thompson-Ruffin is a renowned contemporary fabric artist , quilter, and community organizer. Sonié uses fabric, symbolism, and African textile motifs to explore themes of human rights, gender, race, and equity. Sonié’s work explores joy as a form of resistance, and uses the form of a quilt to share ideas, stories, and testimonies of the African American experience. 

All of the artists in this exhibition combine their personal experiences, views, and aesthetics with a desire to support social change through promoting dialogue, building awareness, and/or direct support. While speaking about different issues and concerns, all are engaged citizens participating actively in positively impacting our contemporary “Social Fabric”.