see how we are
We hurt each other. Intentional or not, hurtful actions can fray personal relationships and tear at community.
Garments are intimately connected to us, a second skin. Clothing mediates our physical and emotional experiences, while absorbing our internal reactions and external influences. The cloth in my work comes from thrift stores, evoking their prior owners and the community they lived in.
In textile, like the body, we stitch to reconnect what is damaged. Repeated acts of stitching tend wounds. I dissect garments and collage the parts together into a new whole. Then I cut into these collages, making holes. Using historic mending techniques, I weave new cloth into the hole, and suture cuts. These interventions leave scars.
Scars are new skin (or cloth), evidence of pain and growth. They acknowledge damage caused, attempts to heal, and the pain and hope that are elemental parts of relationships.
“see how we are 1-4” were started in September 2023 while I was in the Studioworks residency at the Tides Institute and Museum of Art in Eastport, Maine. They are composed of suits, shirts, and bits of fabric from local thrift stores and surplus stores. I dissected the suits and shirts along the seams where they were sewn together and collaged the parts together. These new collages were then cut into and the holes mended with Colonial American and European mending techniques. Some areas are also embroidered.
home