text

pre-dance object

This object, a napkin, colour included in the woven cotton plain weave structure creating a pattern, is just as much of the process here as any of the preceding objects. It is showing signs of love and use, showing signs of work and service. Seemingly simple in its construction, this object acts as an example of what happens when the object’s autonomy is asserted. Standing here being heard, the rolled hem intact, the threads in place, unfussed with. One of a set, autonomous from its siblings, clearly declaring its independence, it has willfully given the directive that it isn’t ready to dance. There is no way for me to describe how this directive has been given to me, the prospective partner. I also have not been ready to engage, I do not have the capacity, time nor attention to give the object the deserved affection. Therefore, our relationship stays where it is. It is so important to emphasize: this object, does just this, it objects. Truly it gives me such glee, not only because we have come to an arrangement and understanding, but because of the saying no thank you, or the fuck no, it has asserted its autonomy.

tape measure I

This yellow measuring tape has been disassembled thread by thread. The nature of its original state offered many opportunities to learn about this tool that I carried with me for years. Woven, and then caked in paper, this tape measure had been so well loved and employed that it was stretched and no longer able to enact its job as an accurate measuring tool. For years it lived in my home as part of a still life of retired older notions under a cloche. It sat with a pin cushion, rusty dulled glass topped pins, wooden antique spools of thread. This assortment became a little shrine to tools that act as extensions of the textile person’s hands, those that allow the maker to multiply themself, duplicate fingers to hold things, count things, and so forth. 

When coming apart, the woven structure would almost breathe, for every short little weft thread pulled, there would be a little gasp of dust, covering the maker, floating through the air, settling on surfaces. A battle ensued, the attempts to keep these little threads in order, stored in the correct direction, forced a slower than usual process of keeping each 1.5 cm thread between the pages of a book. I realized half way through the process, with these long tentacle tails of warp laying in my lap, that I was being unreasonable in my expectation for these tiny little threads, that keeping them separately meant that they no longer had a relation to the thread that would be pulled next, so in reaction to this discovery, I covered a piece of cardboard with double sided tape and pasted these baby threads down so I could tease out the rest of these long tentacles. 

Eventually, these long threads untangled from the grid of woven structure, loose and unwieldly, tangly and charged with static, hung loose from a band hung on the wall. The short threads were vulnerable to being lost, misunderstood or misplaced, read upside down. Whereas these long threads were vulnerable to knots, breakage, and being caught up in something unwanted. Though from the same place, these two types of thread offered their little bodies to totally different risks, which hopefully, I have mitigated. 

Book Singular

The act of keeping here has been a constant. The act of keeping is one that both dance partners are striving for. In order for either of us to do this successfully we have to rely on a third, and isn’t that always the way? In this case we have both turned to books, we turned to a copy of Little Women a book just plucked from the shelves of books that have been carted from home to home in hopes of making a familiar space for myself and my loved ones. It is the dream that this book acts as a home for these threads, who have been gentled pulled out of their familiar grids to be held in wait. The settling into these homes, these homes made by the pages of this book, creating little tunnels to keep their little bodies in place, burrowed into the markers of how the maker has been read by others, and read by themselves, markers of how they wish to be read.

Printed Napkin

This was a surprise: a napkin that appears so dignified, so structured, with so much beauty in that stoicism. The measured spacing of geometric pattern gild the edges of this napkin, almost mirroring the rigidity of the square shape of a napkin, so familiar, so ubiquitous, so square. Its strangeness, or surprise, was revealed in the hem of this square piece of fabric that had been enlisted on to the table. What this napkin revealed felt like a cosmic joke, as it came apart it told a secret of how it had been masquerading. It was printed off grain, you can see. This slow warping at the edge, losing its squareness, slowly dissolving its edges. It come to this practice, in the hands of someone who had been told their entire life that be-to-be off grain is to be off, to be out, to wrong. To be not quite right, to be unsuccessful. You should always square your work, stitching a small cross at a pieces’ centre, identifying clearly the direction and intended squareness of the warp and weft intersecting. This unapologetic declaration of self, this napkin’s admission of being off, of being twisted or tilted is highlighted as soon as it communicated its willingness to dance. Its willingness to get on the floor demands a recognition, it was always there, a queer little napkin, a little off, looking much like its siblings, exactly, in fact, unless intently studied. This little napkin, loosed and reformed, is squealing out: look at my edge! Look at what has been hidden in my hem! Look at the ways in which I was and look now! I want you to see my parts! To see what has been lost by being off grain! Come, see all the glory that can occur when I allow these parts to fall away! Look at how my atoms are an army of singular actors, all holding examples of how they are and were. How they nestle into their newer context, a linen warp, highlighting the success of this shedding of the need to be perfect. This napkin has reimagined itself, this napkin has sighed into its newer home, settled for the time being.

Tiny Towel

This is the first example of two objects being one, in one object being bifurcated. This is a rag, rescued from a ragbag kept in my small storage space. A quarter of a well-loved and long used Ikea tea towel, torn into fragments to act in a studio space, cleaning up after a painter, this rag crisscrossed with blue lines, forming a grid, carrying the stains of a studio space, has been split, I bristle at the use of the word split, perhaps it is more accurate to say that it has dissolved, but this feels like we are avoiding the relationship here between rag and maker. This rag has transformed. Not from one discrete thing into another, instead it has transformed from one rag into one rag in two places. Instead, it is twice, it is twice. This object, like its siblings is in two places at once, straddling. But if we think of this rag as component parts, all also autonomous of each other, its atoms are also individually being recognized. Or at least are striving for recognition.

Interestingly to me, and maybe no one else, since this is a rag that once existed as a part of a larger tea towel, it has been split before. This rag also was a part of a tea towel that was part of a larger grouping of tea towels, once again separated. Its existence and persistence aren’t alone, it isn’t despite these separations, but instead because of them. This is not a rag about loss, because these separations haven’t happened without additions. The life lived by this rag wasn’t a simple equation of inevitable decay. The impressions of experience are carried on its surface. The marks of attendance are immovable. The new selvedge created on the new and fresh edge are all markers of presence. The fact of its continued use long after a recognition of shabbiness conveys the continued need to keep and retain it in a home.

In its relationship with the maker, it continues to be needed, wanted, loved. In this case instead of splitting it into quarters, the rag has now been split into infinity, with the attempt to reconstitute this infinite into a new form. The linen warp. This white warp holding its vulnerable and fragile threads holding these infinite selves in place. After a long process of slow keeping and organization, the threads here are held, firmly, attempting to continue to support a form that is as recognizable to the way it was before. All marks of love and attention are noted and supported. Holding a hem in place, the stains of labour still marked on each fragment.

There is a clear space of before and after, but this rag holds both, and all. It retains all its beforeness, and nowness. It can be seen in all states at once, it is in a state of becoming and unbecoming all at once. There is no one moment that can be identified as was and is in this object, it is transforming in this moment. It is overlapped, in this overlap hopefully there is potential, not as a more than before idea, but in what can happen in any moment. It is happening in this moment, it is happening to every atom of the rag, maybe it is happening to every atom of the maker too. We are both blurred with potentiality, what can be, what is, what has. We are blurred into each other too, we of course are singular from one another, but also overlap. In that overlap is a place of becoming.

The membrane between the before and the now is imperceivable, where is the was and the is? It's as if the maker and the object have melted together.

Napkin turning corner

How can I convey why we are doing this twice? How can I convey that there are many ways that this project could continue forever? It is going to happen forever, whether actively weaving or not. This is just a snapshot in time, this is an arbitrary stop in a long process, a process of building and breaking apart that requires constant review. This object, a napkin made of printed yardage with a simple serged edge, wandered into my linen closet with the assistance of my partner, who confided that they thought of me when they saw this sweet 1980’s print. The colour and exuberance of this print just sang to them. Here we are, an object a little different from the others in this group of work, not different, a new being.

Not to be too on the nose, but this is a the turning of a corner, a turning in the labyrinth, we are still in the same space but in a corridor, same building, new room? This napkin has fallen apart, it has slowly disintegrated from its little tippy toes, thread over thread, slowly opening itself up, slowly revealing how its individual atoms were aligned. Showing the way it was built, the ways in which it was tightly woven together. The napkin has offered forward a bodily hinge, a hinge that it had always contained, one of an infinite amount of hinges held in its form. This ability to turn a corner is a demonstration of the napkin’s ability to hold its own form, to hold space, to be a dimensional object. This unpredictable form is only possible due to the napkin’s willingness to come apart. This form is only possible because of the vulnerability offered. This form is only possible because of the other objects that have been vulnerable, this form is only possible because of the objects innate understanding of its own physical form, its own ability to break and turn.

Hankie and friends

This object, a bandana, broken down and rewoven, alongside a napkin, also pulled apart and reconstituted. All in one an amalgam, a group, a blending. These brought-together objects though disparate, are not unfamiliar to one another. One is an object of communicating desire, the other is an object projecting domesticity, both are the same. These objects in my queer home serve similar purposes. Both are objects of utility, both act and work in their roles as communicators. These objects, though read as somewhat dissimilar, have an overlap. They are brought together in their new context, in their new home, in order to understand one another. Historically, they have lived in the same home, the linen basket at the end of my dining table, they both have been carried from home to home with simple and repetitive jobs at their fingertips. 

The bandana accepted this dance, but it had rules for how it was going to engage. It strongly asserted itself in its disassembly. It made clear how it wanted to be handled. Within the first few moments of the dance, it communicated its needs, slowly ripping in almost perfect thirds, as if it was moving my hand over its body, showing how it wished to be touched. Showing how explicitly it was willing to engage, opening itself up to show its preferred method of coming apart. It was a directive; it was a way of setting its boundaries. Funny how an object that is heavy with connotations, heavy with meaning, heavy with vernacular, all heavy with a language of desire, was able to continue to speak even in its disassembly: Consenting, volunteering, directing, leading the dance. It clearly was a bandana from a left-hand pocket.

This assertive bandana clearly directing its own dance now in direct conversation with an object, a napkin, also directing the conversation. This conversation, though not as assertive, is still heard loud, ringing in my ears, echoing through my hands. This napkin, carried from home to home, this napkin, a signifier of just that, a home, a home that has been built over and over again, an active participant in dinners, a member at the table. Also much like this bandana that was assertive, a left pocket inhabitor, this napkin, also the most at home on the left, as a table setting requires.

I was tasked as a child with table setting, a job that required an active engagement with community building, the building of the family table, that conveniently enough kept me out from underfoot. A role that asked me as a child to consider each family member, or at least this is how it was approached. Calling out who would receive which placemat, “Mady, you get the platypus, Mum you get the Kangaroo, Dad, the Cockatoo, I am getting the Wombat” this ritual of place setting is one that happened every day, as every meal was eaten at the family dining table, always with placemats. A way of telling people who they are to me, a reverse flagging with, if you will.

Tape measure II

This is not the first time I have taken something apart, not even a little bit. In fact, this is not the first time I have taken apart a measuring tape specifically. This is a tool, a tool of measurement, a means to tell if something fits in the world and maybe where, or if something is too large. It is a measure of understanding how much space to take. It is also a means of creating a benchmark, a way of understanding how much has changed: How tall are you? Marking off your height at every birthday. My second attempt at working with a tape measure was totally different. This time I came to the relationship with new skills, a better understanding of how I could be better, more attentive more conscious of our relationship. These insights due to every other relationship I had before. I knew my own limitations, I was able to see my own shortcomings, my own clumsiness. This falling part, as with every other time, was slow, it felt like it took years, (I suppose it had). I knew how I wanted to be able to better serve this little tool but knew that I wasn’t going to be able to do it the same way I had every other time. This long, winding wispy measuring tape had lived rolled up in a plastic case most of its life. A little house that had a boat proudly displayed on its case, a button, acting as a doorbell on its side. An object that comes with its own little shell or cocoon must be fragile. A little snail, soft and squishy, needs its shell to protect itself from the world, and this measuring tape is no different. It is delicate, so fine, so prone to knots and tangles. Of course, this is no different from any other object that has come apart until this point, but somehow its vulnerability was worn on its shell. I knew that there was a need to be gentle, again, no more gentle than with any other object, but maybe because of the fragility being communicated, it made me that much more self-conscious. I couldn’t coax this snail from its shell without being certain I could guarantee its safety. 

The only way of coming apart in this case, was to come apart at the same time. This is difficult to explain. This process was one of unmaking and remaking all at the same time. I was so fearful of losing the short threads of the tape, they were so small, so prone to being lost, so vulnerable, that in this moment, on the precipice, we stepped, we leapt, we trusted one another. I drew on all the lessons that had been taught and trusted that this little fragile snail would guide me.

slowly.

Slowly.  

Following the little snail’s path, thread by tiny little thread, they were loosened, and instead of keeping them in the library, these tiny little threads were imbedded into a new warp. They were falling apart, directly into their new home. They were not immune to perceived risks, there was always the risk of a breeze too strong, or of a static charge magically pulling these little fragments into the open warp only to get lost. But there was no in-between, this tiny breathy thread would always be at the whim of the elements, but to limit the potential for loss was the solution, as the threads are pulled and placed, nestled into the new linen home, they line up along the selvedge of the cloth, slowly creating a sensitive undulating wave, signalling its autonomy, its personality. 

As the tiny threads are being pulled, there is a long tail being created, the warp threads waving, loose of the holding threads, these tiny little crosshatches, so powerful, holding in place the long and wild threads running, intersecting, organizing. In order to keep the threads from being lost, they also get woven into the same home as its little siblings. They are so in need of one another, unable to exist without the other, allowing these disparate parts to be together but separate, allowing each atom of the body to be there without being entangled in one another.

Fuzzy library

This stack of books, a stack of books that add up to be a version of myself, maybe not a total version, maybe just a perception of the maker by an audience, maybe a pile of versions of self, maybe a projection of what the maker wishes to see of themself. These books acting not as words on a page, not as keepers of words, but instead acting as their most book like, existing solely as bodies, as entities that can exist as pages and a spine, trustworthy and sturdy, offering their many hands to help the threads that have been untethered to be kept, to offer a safe place for the parts of these selves to be housed. These stacks of books are fuzzy, they are unkempt, they feel as if they are growing of their own volition, they are able to expand out like a heavy sigh holding these threads that when individuated seem like wisps, but when together become more weighty, when together they stretch out, asking the bindings of these books to open themselves.

Pink Napkin

A neon pink floral napkin with serged edges, a print that includes purples and greens. A napkin that has been carried home to home, a thrilling object that is counter to the objects I have made in the past. This napkin sauntered into my linen closet as a gift. A gift that was handed over as a form of encouragement. A gift that was meant to be a generous nudge to keep making. This napkin came in a ragbag of scraps, a ragbag that was full of textile shreds that were kept, in stash over stash, a ragbag acting as an archive of interest. Little pieces of fabric that were kept by various caretakers over time, too beautiful, unusual, and coveted to throw out, a ragbag of scraps that had been passed from maker to maker, from studio to studio, contents being added to, removed, a bag of remnants too special, but not of use, or in need, depending on the owner.

This napkin acted as a beacon, a highlighter, a flash in a bag. A call from an army of objects, reaching out, flagging me down. It has been a stalwart favourite, sitting alongside me, when collections were edited, passed along, it always stayed, resilient, stubborn. So bawdy, in comparison to the usual objects of my affection, this napkin reminds me of the ways I could be. It reminds me of the people I love, exuberant, chatty, and a little retro. The print reminds me of the dresses I lusted after at the vintage shops I used to haunt as a teen, reminds me of the bedroom Teeny accepted her Oscar in, in slumber party favourite Now and Then, reminds me of a version of myself that could have been.[1]

Dissolved a number of times, the threads of this object have been detangled and reformed, appearing to be three discreet objects, but in reality, all one, the selvedges of the object the only thing keeping it separated from the other selves it hangs with.[2] The remaking that has happened here has resulted in threads hanging loose, ringlets falling out from its new plane, threads traversing two separate linen warps, highlighting the relations here, and in the absence of the floral, a woven section of linen, upon linen, linen that had once held a portion of the napkin, only to dance again, dissolving and reconstituting.[3] These bodies are imbued with evidence of relationship, tiny snapshots of how they have been with. The body of this napkin, a version of self, over and over, multiplied over many bodies, the recognizable voice of another coming out of your mouth.

[1] I was always chosen to being a Chrissy, not a Teeny, not a Sam, and certainly not a Roberta (this felt terribly insulting, but upon reflection accurate). Other characters I have been assigned… Beth (Little Women), Mike Nesmith (The Monkees), Sporty Spice (The Spice Girls)

[2] I would suggest four… napkin 1, napkin 2, napkin 3, napkin kate…. We are split and shared

[3] This does beg the question, when is the ship totally new?

Maker

All nerves and yawns, this object has gotten to go through as many dissolutions and reconstitutions as there are sibling objects in this practice. The comfort searched for in this body, is infinite. Constantly coming apart, the object is in search of a way to be held, wishing for a repository, for the tumbleweeds of hair that comes out in combs, wishing for the ability to nestle into the pages of a book, a home. This object has been worked upon by the threads that have been tangled out of its fingers, by the pockets it has been placed in, the napkins that have mopped up the evidence of mess, by the hems that have both kept them safe as well as squared.  

This object, a maker, the same as the napkins, the hankies, the tape measures, also makers. Clinging, vying, vulnerable and tender. Made and remade over and over in this process, there is always a reaching for the making a new place of home. Reaching out for a sitter, having been tucked in a number of times, impressed upon by every keeper, every caretaker. Brimming with feelings of affection, of aspiration, of nostalgia, of longing. Fizzy with secrets shared, with secrets kept. Folded in the laundry basket, stacked up in a tower, adrift in the ocean of a bathtub. This object has been broken apart and appears as one formal element, just it as it appears singular, it also appears, over and over in the wrinkles, the linen, the treadling errors. Fragments of self, ever changing, ever wiggly, ever squirmy, transformed by every gentle caress.