forgotten women series
Crocheted doilies, hand embroidery, acrylic paint, fire. 6”x6”, 2023. Sold Individually.
This series was inspired by the crocheted doilies left behind as the primary physical legacy of generations of (mostly) women, as the means by which their descendants remember them, or don’t. I made each doily for this project and then burned them to reveal an embroidered PET scan of a brain, indicating diagnosable mental illnesses (according to the infallible medical research repository of Google Images). As I made them, I imagined each person’s rich interior life, as it may have been unknown by the families who touched their creations, who boxed them up after the funerals, who set their coffee mugs on the thousands of tiny knots brought to life by bones and sinew and pain and laughter.
“Abby Normal” (mostly green brain)
Abby’s brain is “normal,” whatever that means. Abby’s never felt normal in her life, not for one fleeting moment, no matter how much she tries to file down her edges and hew herself into the shape of normal. Abby writes bad poems about her garden and loves to ride on public transit, where she can let her mind unwrinkle and forget not to think about her best friend from junior high school, whose hair was like the afternoon light catching on wheat and whose hands were the softest things she’d ever touch.
“Frances” (OCD - bright red) SOLD
Frances’ family pretended not to notice when she removed all the mirrors from their home. Especially the ones in the bathrooms - why were those even there to begin with? Who on earth wants to see their bodies after a bath, pink from scrubbing and unhideable? But the mirrors are still there - the shop windows, the spit-shined cars parked on the streets Frances must walk, can’t not walk. Sometimes Frances feels like she could close her eyes and concentrate, and explode every reflective surface with the combustible energy boiling inside her ribcage. Instead she lights another cigarette and reaches for a ball of yarn.
“Eugenia” (Depression - dark blue)
Eugenia’s sister calls it her “couch of sadness,” but it’s not sadness, not really. Eugenia would welcome sadness, she’d revel in it, crawl right up to the shoreline and let sadness lap at her body until she was immersed in it. At least sadness would be placeable. Eugenia could find somewhere to put it, on a bookshelf next to a picture of herself that she barely recognizes. She sinks into the cushions of the couch of nothing instead, pulls another blanket across her lap, and sleeps.
“Darla” (Bipolar - light blue)
Darla explodes into the lives of the people who are lucky enough to meet her like hard artillery and leaves behind a bombed-out shell of a building when she inevitably vanishes again. She’s impossibly vibrant, so bright that it almost hurts to look at her tossing her head back with dangerous, wild mirth. And then when she’s gone, it’s a bright spot on the back of your eyelids, swimming hazily in memory. She leaves behind piles of things half-made, unfinished, works in progress, and no one will ever be able to complete them.
Crocheted doilies, hand embroidery, acrylic paint, fire. 6”x6”, 2023. Sold Individually.
This series was inspired by the crocheted doilies left behind as the primary physical legacy of generations of (mostly) women, as the means by which their descendants remember them, or don’t. I made each doily for this project and then burned them to reveal an embroidered PET scan of a brain, indicating diagnosable mental illnesses (according to the infallible medical research repository of Google Images). As I made them, I imagined each person’s rich interior life, as it may have been unknown by the families who touched their creations, who boxed them up after the funerals, who set their coffee mugs on the thousands of tiny knots brought to life by bones and sinew and pain and laughter.
“Abby Normal” (mostly green brain)
Abby’s brain is “normal,” whatever that means. Abby’s never felt normal in her life, not for one fleeting moment, no matter how much she tries to file down her edges and hew herself into the shape of normal. Abby writes bad poems about her garden and loves to ride on public transit, where she can let her mind unwrinkle and forget not to think about her best friend from junior high school, whose hair was like the afternoon light catching on wheat and whose hands were the softest things she’d ever touch.
“Frances” (OCD - bright red) SOLD
Frances’ family pretended not to notice when she removed all the mirrors from their home. Especially the ones in the bathrooms - why were those even there to begin with? Who on earth wants to see their bodies after a bath, pink from scrubbing and unhideable? But the mirrors are still there - the shop windows, the spit-shined cars parked on the streets Frances must walk, can’t not walk. Sometimes Frances feels like she could close her eyes and concentrate, and explode every reflective surface with the combustible energy boiling inside her ribcage. Instead she lights another cigarette and reaches for a ball of yarn.
“Eugenia” (Depression - dark blue)
Eugenia’s sister calls it her “couch of sadness,” but it’s not sadness, not really. Eugenia would welcome sadness, she’d revel in it, crawl right up to the shoreline and let sadness lap at her body until she was immersed in it. At least sadness would be placeable. Eugenia could find somewhere to put it, on a bookshelf next to a picture of herself that she barely recognizes. She sinks into the cushions of the couch of nothing instead, pulls another blanket across her lap, and sleeps.
“Darla” (Bipolar - light blue)
Darla explodes into the lives of the people who are lucky enough to meet her like hard artillery and leaves behind a bombed-out shell of a building when she inevitably vanishes again. She’s impossibly vibrant, so bright that it almost hurts to look at her tossing her head back with dangerous, wild mirth. And then when she’s gone, it’s a bright spot on the back of your eyelids, swimming hazily in memory. She leaves behind piles of things half-made, unfinished, works in progress, and no one will ever be able to complete them.
Crocheted doilies, hand embroidery, acrylic paint, fire. 6”x6”, 2023. Sold Individually.
This series was inspired by the crocheted doilies left behind as the primary physical legacy of generations of (mostly) women, as the means by which their descendants remember them, or don’t. I made each doily for this project and then burned them to reveal an embroidered PET scan of a brain, indicating diagnosable mental illnesses (according to the infallible medical research repository of Google Images). As I made them, I imagined each person’s rich interior life, as it may have been unknown by the families who touched their creations, who boxed them up after the funerals, who set their coffee mugs on the thousands of tiny knots brought to life by bones and sinew and pain and laughter.
“Abby Normal” (mostly green brain)
Abby’s brain is “normal,” whatever that means. Abby’s never felt normal in her life, not for one fleeting moment, no matter how much she tries to file down her edges and hew herself into the shape of normal. Abby writes bad poems about her garden and loves to ride on public transit, where she can let her mind unwrinkle and forget not to think about her best friend from junior high school, whose hair was like the afternoon light catching on wheat and whose hands were the softest things she’d ever touch.
“Frances” (OCD - bright red) SOLD
Frances’ family pretended not to notice when she removed all the mirrors from their home. Especially the ones in the bathrooms - why were those even there to begin with? Who on earth wants to see their bodies after a bath, pink from scrubbing and unhideable? But the mirrors are still there - the shop windows, the spit-shined cars parked on the streets Frances must walk, can’t not walk. Sometimes Frances feels like she could close her eyes and concentrate, and explode every reflective surface with the combustible energy boiling inside her ribcage. Instead she lights another cigarette and reaches for a ball of yarn.
“Eugenia” (Depression - dark blue)
Eugenia’s sister calls it her “couch of sadness,” but it’s not sadness, not really. Eugenia would welcome sadness, she’d revel in it, crawl right up to the shoreline and let sadness lap at her body until she was immersed in it. At least sadness would be placeable. Eugenia could find somewhere to put it, on a bookshelf next to a picture of herself that she barely recognizes. She sinks into the cushions of the couch of nothing instead, pulls another blanket across her lap, and sleeps.
“Darla” (Bipolar - light blue)
Darla explodes into the lives of the people who are lucky enough to meet her like hard artillery and leaves behind a bombed-out shell of a building when she inevitably vanishes again. She’s impossibly vibrant, so bright that it almost hurts to look at her tossing her head back with dangerous, wild mirth. And then when she’s gone, it’s a bright spot on the back of your eyelids, swimming hazily in memory. She leaves behind piles of things half-made, unfinished, works in progress, and no one will ever be able to complete them.