between the sea and the sky there is cloth 

handwoven cloth, hand dyed and sunbleached 

2020


presented as part of Please Save Our Earth!

~ between the sea and the sky there is cloth

This work began as a meditation on the edges of time. As the days bled during quarantine, I was drawn back to my loom out of a desire to feel grounded. The action of weaving is a physical documentation of time passed, and so I derived a great deal of comfort crossing days off my calendar this way.

Cloth is memory through the way it physically holds tension while being made, but also in the way it fades or deteriorates through the years on the body or in the home. I became interested in how to speed up this aging, and so once the piece was off the loom I left it outside to fade in the sun and rain for weeks. As it “bleached” I moved it a few inches at a time to encourage vatiation. At first, I checked everyday out of an eagerness for results which I quickly found dissapointing. As the weeks passed however and I moved the piece once every 7-10 days it felt more like an active collaboration with the sun and rain as I released control.

During these weeks I thought about how quickly I might have abandoned this work had I not had the time to slow down and listen to what it wanted. I also thought a great deal about excess and how little we think of cloth when it has so much to offer us. This piece became not only a lesson in how to integrate slowness into my work, but a way to reconnect to my weaving practice with gratitude and presentness.