MFA Thesis Exhibition March 6-28th 2025
Tipton Gallery 126 Spring Street, Johnson City, TN
Held on by a Thread
For three lifetimes, my grandmother, mother, and I have collected and saved items that hold memories of our lives. These objects included clothing, photographs (primarily captured by my mother), bed linens, and sewing notions. After my grandmother's passing when I was young, most of the objects from her home came with my mother and me, as no one else saw the value in them. These items only took up space in our house; they have sat untouched for a decade, only to be brought out when reminiscing about our shared life. To preserve and protect the objects, they were stored in cedar chests. The smell of cedar along with the physical remnants remind me of the life I have shared with the women in my life. In my work, I have been utilizing these objects that hold memory value to myself, my mother, and my grandmother to connect to our relationships as women.
My mother and grandmother utilized craft out of necessity, often constructing clothing and household items. I translate this inter-generational practice by making works not of the utility of wear but as tools for remembrance. Quilts comfort and enwrap a body, and they have functioned for me as a stand-in for the touch of my family. I have been making quilts using my family's artifacts, along with my mother's photographs. These quilts function as relics containing the physical reminders of our shared life. Through this process, I fragment these materials and reconstruct them using a half-square-angled pattern that is found in my only surviving family quilt. Using objects from the home, I am looking to show how the material objects piece together the memories that have lost their clarity over time.
