Invisible Weight, 2019
Hand embroidered and trimmed twin size quilt with photo transfer // 87” x 63” // 2019
I know There Was a Red Bed in The Room, 2019
Red twin size bed cut in half and bound with yarn and a hand embroidered handkerchief // 38” x 40.5” x 48” // 2019 .Photos Courtesy of Rump Gallery. Photos taken by Kim Peters.
Using materials that reference a child's bedroom, I explore the invisible weight placed on matriarchs within my family through acts of invisible labor. An archived family photo is transferred onto a twin size bed sheet and embroidered to create a story quilt highlighting the complexity of how memory relates to image, object, love, trauma, and blended families. A red twin-sized bed is stripped to its frame, cut in half, and mounted to a wall on a ninety-degree angle bound with red yarn and adorned with my grandmother's hand-embroidered handkerchief. At times embodying the lens of my mother or grandmother, and other times as a daughter, the objects explore unconditional love and the tensions between a mother's desire to protect the family and sometimes the inability to do so.