Residency application draft for Women's Studio Workshop

Project Description

I am interested in creating an artist book based on my interactive performance piece Airing Dirty Laundry. This ongoing piece has existed both as a growing site-specific installation and as an interactive collaboration between the public and myself. It has aimed to reveal a common thread between meditation and everyday actions. It began as a collection of various commands and criticisms amassed via public interaction over the last few years; it has continued as an embroidery circle, most recently at a winter residency at Roos Arts in Rosendale, where I worked alongside volunteer participants embroidering the phrases onto antique table linens and white bed sheets. I hope to expand upon the collaborative nature of the piece in the form of an artists’ book.

Embroidery as a central visual element has emphasized the connection between internal reflection and external daily activity. The playful yet suggestive notion of “airing dirty laundry,” in combination with public participation, has facilitated a creative space to reveal stories and life experiences we might otherwise keep to ourselves.

The book I would like to make will be comprised of 12 antique table linens or ‘pages’ that have various commands and criticisms embroidered onto them. Linen and thread color would both be white, pointing to - and at the same time subverting - notions of neutrality, purity and cleanliness. The pages would be housed in a handmade portfolio, and experienced either in one’s hand, or as a wall-mounted installation. Both configurations aim to underscore the intimate nature of the texts themselves. Edition size would be 9 or 12; portfolios and pages to be created at WSW.

It would be a natural extension of the piece to continue its fabrication at Women’s Studio Workshop. WSW has a long-standing commitment to the tradition of making work in a collaborative and non-competitive environment, which is in line with my philosophy of art making. Especially in this piece, collaboration and participation from faculty, staff, and other artists would be encouraged.