Everything Looms (2024 – )
This series explores my interest in the dichotomies between absence and presence, hard and soft, discarded and discovered. I collect flattened garbage from parking lots and poke holes in the objects in order to create a spiral warp for weaving. I then weave through the warp strings and finish the weaving on the objects, so they are at once the loom and the frame for the resulting tapestry. The Everything Looms communicate traces of information about the original consumer of these items, a person who remains unknowable to both artist and audience. For instance, the menthol vape box was found with the Coca-Cola can. The Hard Mountain Dew can was found in a daycare parking lot. These strangers were a person who vapes nicotine with caffeine, a person who prefers Coke to Pepsi, a light beer drinker, a parent. The hard surfaces and jagged edges of the garbage are contrasted with the fluffiness of the yarn, just as the absence of the first owner is reinforced through my intervention as the weaver.