USA Projects

As an Artist-in-Residence at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE I will be starting a series of large scale self-portrait tapestries. I will be equipped with my Macomber floor loom which has a maximum weaving width of 4 ft. on which I can weave panels of larger tapestries that will be sewn together once they are off the loom. But more importantly, I will be building a large wall loom so that I can weave images that do not have to be assembled post weaving. These tapestries will be using imagery from my young adulthood and will be hand woven using wool that is hand dyed. 

History: My work has been increasingly personal as time passes; I started out weaving tapestries from images of my family to psychoanalyze the dynamics between my two sisters and me. This led me down the path of researching how trauma, death, single parent households and absent fathers affect young women specifically. Both of my sisters have struggled with alcohol and drug addiction while I have remained sober. I spent many years researching drug addiction, how it is passed down through family members, how young women deal with the pressures of sex, drugs and alcohol and the subsequent negative events that these things often lead to. I wove tapestries using imagery I found off of Facebook and Google Image Search of young women in risky or vulnerable positions, putting a faceless body to the events that many young people are putting themselves through.

I am finally putting myself directly into the tapestries, I have always been sympathetic to the young women in my tapestries but I feel I have never made it completely clear that I am mourning for the women who are being exploited not just in their dorm rooms/personal spaces or on the streets but by unauthorized sharing on the internet. As a woman I have put myself in risky situations and want to address issues surrounding sex, personal identity and self esteem that are prevalent in how I have developed as a woman. I am taking pictures of myself, body and personal objects and turning them into large scale tapestries so the viewer can better understand my perspective. This is projects will be a physical and emotional marathon! 

Project: My goal of $5,000 will allow me to purchase the materials to construct the wall looms and complete a series of large scale, 10ft x 6ft self portrait wool tapestries for an upcoming solo exhibition in San Francisco, CA at Guerrero Gallery in 2012.

For the next 3 months I will be working full time on research, photography, planning and finally execution of this exhibition. As a tapestry weaver my materials are wool yarn, cotton warp and acid dye specifically for dyeing wool, I will also be purchasing a heavy duty skein winder to expedite the step right before the dyeing process. These tapestries are on such a large scale, unlike any artist has tried to complete in this short amount of time and every tool I can get that will speed up a step is crucial. Each tapestry will take approximately 3-4 weeks to complete so I will be using some of the money to defray my home studio rent in Philadelphia, PA which is $200 per month and for travel to and from artist residencies where I will be working.

Anything past the $5,000 goal will go towards travel money for the install week in San Francisco, CA.