Village Well Books & Coffee presents “Free To Sp%@k!”, a group exhibition by Southern California fiber artists Kathryn Pellman, Kelly Hartigan Goldstein, and MartyO, who test the tensile strength of free expression when language itself has become a battleground. Timed to coincide with the American Library Association’s annual Banned Books Week (October 4–11, 2025), The artists pose a direct question: What happens to a democracy when the First Amendment is treated as negotiable rather than fundamental?
Each artist responds using their craft not as quiet decoration but as deliberate disruption, embedding contested language directly into their materials. Together, they demonstrate that if voices held no power, efforts to suppress them would not be so relentless.
Moving between hush and outcry within tactile mediums of fiber and paper, these works engage the contested public square where dissent is labeled threat and expression comes under mounting pressure. Feminine craft, long considered unassuming women’s work, has a rich tradition of saying what needs to be said while hiding in plain sight. From suffragist banners to anti-war quilts, stitchery has carried protests across generations.
In “FREE TO SP%@K!”, paper and fabric become testimony, weaving words deemed dangerous back into public discourse. The exhibition frames free speech not as mere courtesy, but as infrastructure: the civic architecture that permits disagreement without collapse. It traces the subtle mechanics of erasure—the edited phrase, the narrowed vocabulary, the forbidden subject. In response, these artists counter with acts of making that insist on reclaiming voice and agency. The works both shout and whisper urgent truths, reminding us that when speech is silenced, art becomes resistance. When speech becomes dangerous, stitching becomes defiance.
About the Artists:
Kathryn Pellman blends words, cartoons, fashion, and quilting to explore social and political issues, with particular attention to the First Amendment. Sewing since childhood and influenced by fashion design, she treats fabric as paint, thread as ink, and her sewing machine as a pen, creating quilt-like pieces she considers modern folk art. Pellman’s works are both narrative and visual, often using text or chance images found in fabric to tell stories rooted in fact and reputable sources. She is the author of Word Salad, Fashionistas and Girlfriends. She identifies as artist, quilter, sewist, fashionista, cook, gardener, and storyteller—embedding personal identity and cultural commentary into her creative practice.
MartyO is a self-taught fiber artist working from her home studio in Southern California. Formerly a clinical social worker and attorney, her past work deeply informs her artistic practice and advocacy. Raised with an awareness of textile labor abuses, her mother and grandmother both worked in sweatshops, she is passionate about addressing issues of waste and exploitation in the industry. Beginning her fiber art career in her mid-fifties, she has since become a full-time artist, integrating her social justice concerns into her art work.
Kelly Hartigan Goldstein creates meticulous analog newspaper collages to ruminate the tension between private reflection and public discourse. Working only from a single day’s newspaper, and armed with a timely political issue, she builds intricate visual narratives composed entirely of cut text and printed images. A former Hollywood animation and film effects professional, her cinematic background informs compositions that merge storytelling with challenging political discourse and her love of wordplay. A University of Michigan Art School graduate, Hartigan Goldstein is active with Southern California’s Women’s Caucus for the Arts and Los Angeles Art Association. In 2024 she partnered with Vote Forward on a benefit print sale supporting election engagement.
Village Well Books & Coffee—Culver City’s first independent, community-centered bookstore café—offers the perfect setting for this dialogue. Known as both a literary and social hub, Village Well unites books, art, and conversation, making it an ideal space to reflect on the relationship between free speech and creative expression.