// Spools //

Assorted Wood

Assorted Sizes

2015

In front of you are objects that have at least two primary functions. They can both hold thread and fit inside of the human body, ergonomic enough to provide some sort of pleasure for the user, while maintaining the ability to hold one's thread. These spools were created in reverence to women all over the world, past and present who have participated in “women's craft”, particularly that of embroidery. These spools are sexualized while portraying what can sometimes be a very sexless activity; embroidery. Says Rozsika Parker, “embroidery [also] evokes the stereotype of the virgin in opposition to the whore, and infantilizing representations of women’s sexuality” 1 This quote is important because it reflects on the femininity forced upon women and shaped by society. The patriarchal ideology is only further imposed with the creation of the craft of embroidery, which is tailored toward women in the home, specifically mothers and daughters, perhaps the two least sexual of women. With this however, is the subject of female empowerment that comes from embroidery. “Embroidery has provided a source of pleasure and power for women, while being indissolubly linked to their powerlessness. Paradoxically, while embroidery was employed to inculcate femininity in women, it also enabled them to negotiate the constraints of femininity.” 1

Because embroidery both enforces the feminine ideal and personal pleasure, I leave you with this; these spools do not pick a side, meaning, these spools were made to remember embroidery and the women who embroidered. These objects are not meant to scorn the idea of what was once and is still predominantly a women’s craft, nor are they meant to applaud salacious fallacies pertaining to the female gender. Crafting these spools provided me with pleasure and is simply meant to continue the conversation, encouraging others to reflect on the hobbies and crafts in which they seek satisfaction.   

1. Rozsika Parker. The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2010. Print.

// Pile of My Shavings (Proof) //

Wood, Disappointment, Personal Growth

2016

This performance is an exercise in acknowledging failure when forced to face remnants of material at the end of a frustrating day in the woodshop.

I came up with this piece after struggling to create tangible objects or in my mind, proofs that I was crafting and engaged in my studies. Workshops, such as wood shops, can be competitive spaces consisting mainly of male bodies. In the shop, I am not only constantly conscious of my output compared to others, but also hyper-aware of my body, careful to step lightly and not take up space.

Failure is integral to making and I find myself obsessed with the idea that I am uninspired and therefore have already failed. Perhaps the failure here is not that I lack critical creative energy, but that I call this lack of initiative a failure without exploring it further. Could crafting and craft output be looked at as a scale from Zero: the act of not creating, to Ten: the act of creating at a continuous rate with consistent completion? If so, would anything less than Ten be considered a failure?

My pile for the performance is composed of saved scraps and shavings of wood from my failed lathe projects – my tangible guilt about the lack of objects created in a day. Even if I did not make an object, or it broke, or something went wrong, I would still have to look at the shavings and clean them up, acknowledging the end of what I thought to be another unproductive day.

Before my project, I believed that ‘fruitful’ and ‘failure’ were antonyms, and that it was impossible to be both or neither at the same time. I have now come to the realization that not only is this untrue, but that failure itself can be fruitful. After ‘failing’ for so many weeks this spring, I realized that I was not assessing my actions, or lack of physical objects, through my own eyes. Instead of embracing the thinking and questioning dimensions of crafting, I was viewing this lack of physicality through the eyes of my classmates. I judged myself based on assumed expectations of those around me. How would anyone know that I was thinking, and growing, and arguably crafting, without physical proof? Some days, it felt that the only proof I would ever have were the piles of dust and shavings at my feet.

Over these next 3 weeks I will be sweeping my shavings to various locations around the gallery, gradually spreading dust around the majority of the gallery floor. I will retire my broom on the closing night of the show, having nothing left to sweep. By leaving my shavings around, I will not only be taking up space, but confronting the failure that we all experience and acknowledging that all the beautiful and bizarre pieces in the gallery today are crafted with the help of failure, the ultimate collaborator.