CURRENT WORK: Carrying Care
My work is about care and carrying. As a multidisciplinary artist I move between printmaking, fiberwork projects and a series of self portraits. Objects that I have cared for are embedded in the imagery. A cassette tape recorded by my father becomes a loose tangled line. The wallet my mother used becomes a printed shape with a profile like an island.
Gestures of care extend beyond the immediate web of family and friends. In response to the chaotic and heartbreaking news feed, disciplines of printmaking and textiles are merged in an ongoing body of work titled Samplers. Monotypes mimic a stage curtain opening where titles, in all caps, announce text rendered from media headlines. After the page is pierced the letters are laid with the slow, reflective, domestic labor of cross stitches.
Self portraits research the somatic labor of holding the material object. The body’s caring and the moment when the objects being carried are more than groceries and a steady stream of pragmatic purchases, but stories, dreams and poems that nurture us through the tasks.
As a printmaker, exploring the materiality of paper, plastic and fiber things that carry things I am pulling mirrored monotypes. The figurative vessels that carry things are duplicated, deconstructed and arranged resulting in a record of a day at the etching press. The materiality of iconic brown paper bags and their handles is translated to a secondary page. Assorted contents are selected, arranged and inked to become the objects or the stories of the objects being carried.
After engaging with the form of the vessel and the imagined contents the form shifts, becoming more socially engaged. A set of artist’s books and 2 dozen dyed, repurposed fiber wallet forms, invite the viewer and holder as an active participant to consider their story while stitching, embellishing, crafting and making note of the scope and range of care and carrying.