As an interdisciplinary artist, I use traditional sewing, quilting and other craft techniques to tell stories of devotion through the mundane. By using forgotten material and textile waste I recontextualize themes of intimacy, gender, and desire.
Textile waste is both an abundance and a huge responsibility. I transform textile waste to tell fragmented stories. The fabrics I reclaim have stains, stitches, and other marks that hold memories of their past lives. In the same way that Leslie Finberg shares, ‘never underestimate fiction's ability to tell the truth’, these materials, cut up and fractured, recontextualize gendered expectations in a gendered material. I believe there is an inherent queerness to using clothing not for its intended purpose.
I practice improvisational quilting and crazy quilting to intuitively transform clothing and other found material. I make quilts that kaleidoscope clothing as a means to grasp towards something more honest about my lived experience. I think of intimacy both as a past experience and yearning. I relate to José Muños’ notion that “Queerness is an ideality. Put another way, we are not yet queer. We may never touch queerness but we can feel it. The future is queerness’ domain.” My practice investigates how transforming fabric waste can show us a path towards regeneration. I view time intensive craft techniques as an embodiment of queer time. What can the repetition involved in craft techniques teach up about devotion?
