“Once” – Significant Stitching?
Once (detail)
Hand-dyed cotton, acrylic paint, Tyvek from a lab jacket, embroidery thread.
This artwork is 35.5″ x 32,” but I prefer not to show the entire artwork until closer to its exhibition debut at Art Quilts XIV: Significant Stitching at the Chandler Center for the Arts, Chandler, AZ.
The prospectus for this exhibit stated, This year’s theme encourages you to explore what makes your work significant. Is it the statement your piece makes? Is it quilting lines made meaningful by placement? Surface design which speaks to the soul? Amazing quilting or appliqué?
I very much wanted to play against the exhibit title. The quilting on this artwork can only be seen on the back. Here’s my artist statement,
How can we sustain an environment in which Tyvek lab jackets are worn once in a sterile environment and then discarded? Squares cut from just such a jacket were painted in delicate earth colors, hand-quilted to hand-dyed cotton and then buried beneath layers upon layers of screenprinted paint. Consider all that time spent in hand-stitching which will never be seen except from the back. It’s a small sacrifice made to call attention how the glittery surface of our consumer society hides an ugly truth: our failure to embrace a time-consuming commitment to reduce, reuse, recycle.
The exhibit runs November 20, 2009 – January 2, 2010.
