Arrivant

Weaving is like a long, articulated, scream.
It’s a great way for a quiet person like me to be very loud;
like having a beleaguered older sibling who tells you secrets from time to time.

Sitting at the loom, I’ve learned that unless there are material consequences I will not slow down, save to curse god, or cry at the cruelty of the universe for having let another thread break. I digress. Sitting at the loom, I have learned that there is a time and a place for speed, a right time to be quick, and necessary moments for being slow and patient.

This most recent body of work is the product of several, stuttered attempts at being patient, in which I contemplated, firstly, what the f*ck I’m doing in art school, but also, the long and unnerving history of imperialism from which these past few, horrific, years have sprung.

I thought about the U.S as an entity, and as a place, as an accomplice in genocide and erasure, and as the surface embellishment of a landscape with roots that go far, far, far, beneath conceptions of statehood, and the illusions of purity, and truth to which they aspire.

I thought about the plants that grow here in California, and the hills, and the way the light changes over time - how different it feels than where I’ve lived before - and I mapped these places in cloth to honor them; to resist allegiance to the state and it’s contempt for indigineity; and to more fully embody my own interests in craft, agriculture, and the histories embedded in how they have been practiced in this fucked up country; especially by my ancestors and their allies: people who have known violence, beauty, ecology, and art.