When Nehrig was 26 and going through a divorce, she turned to knitting for solace. During the pandemic, nearly 15 years later, she began knitting more complex patterns and questioning what textile work has meant for women in difficult times. The clinical and research psychologist spoke with PW about her findings, which she shares in With Her Own Hands (Norton, Aug.).
What sparked your research into fiber arts?
During the pandemic, there was no time to do anything just for myself; I was only knitting when I was with the kids or during meetings. It reminded me that women’s lives used to be much more about survival—not to say that my life in Brooklyn is the same as that of a pioneer woman on the prairie or in 12th-century India, but my life was pared down to a place that was not familiar to me. I started reading books about it because I was curious: What did this work mean to women a thousand years ago? Five thousand years ago? How far back can we go?
What did you learn?
Virginia Postrel’s The Fabric of Civilization looks at how women contributed to the economy with their textile work. Elizabeth Wayland Barber’s Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years was eye-opening: based on archaeological remains, women did this work together, and Barber wondered whether they added details to the work as a way to spend even more time together. A favorite experience was going to Peru and talking to women there; weaving is ingrained in their cosmology. I talked to a lot of people around the world about what this work means. Archaeologists, anthropologists, people who have a firsthand connection, historically or culturally. It has a lot of richness and meaning to the people who do it.
Did the social science aspect surprise you?
It’s not just the social sciences—it’s a lot of the hard sciences, too. There’s a whole chemical process that happens in dyeing and processing wool, processing flax to make linen, and breaking down the fibers of the flax to spin it into thread that you can weave. You’ve got to think about structure. There’s math. There’s so much that goes into it. The work was interdisciplinary at a time when there weren’t these disciplines 20,000 years ago. It’s wild that you can take something and transform it into something so different and so beautiful and meaningful. It communicates culture and personal preferences; it can be a gift for somebody getting married or a survival tool. I would say textile work touches on biology, chemistry, engineering, culture, sociology, psychology, all of these things.
What, historically, has creating textiles provided for women?
It brought women together. It gave women a chance to talk about ideas, to support each other, to create movements, to stand up for things. And it could be done under the cover of something that looked really innocuous, that just looked like something women were supposed to be doing. Life is inherently meaningless, and it’s up to us to make meaning from what’s available.
How has knitting helped you?
I had a lot of friends who supported me through my divorce, and it felt really good to be able to make things for them. I was able to ground myself with my knitting. In the therapy process it’s kind of hard to quantify progress, but in knitting you see the changes and the growth.
Correction: This article has been edited to clarify the age at which Nehrig was divorced.
