kozo paper quilts, 2020-23
Born of a sense of playfulness, my current body of work engages with themes of craft, sustainability, the passage of time, and daily domestic tasks.
Quilts interest me for their connection to a sense of thrift, in many ways the antithesis of endless consumption. Quilting parallels collage: a strategy of infinite possibility and regeneration. This paper quilt rearranges stains into order. Painted stains permeate a delicate but strong paper, stitched on a domestic sewing machine. Playing with pattern and imposing rhythm, it becomes a storied and historied object.
I think of stains in relation to garments and caring for laundry, a context where such marks are undesirable or even shameful – particularly when an item has sentimental value like a family heirloom. I’m interested in this unglamorous, gendered, and underappreciated labor.