Objects in Transition, 2024
cotton and silk embroidery thread, linen and cotton applique, PVC sequins on cotton fabric
Objects in Transition dialogue between old self and new, my grandmother and myself. The book began as an explanation of sorts to friends and family: why I had started medically transition, and why I had waited. It helped me to abbreviate a lifelong process that I have only recently really started to understand, to fill in with thread the places where words fail to reach.
The project of Objects in Transition is an ongoing series of mixed-media textile art chronicling and celebrating the material aspects of my adolescence and adulthood as a transgender person. It began with the book, and has since expanded to include a well-worn chest binder, a 2017 magazine cover, a breakfast table scene, and a series of burlesque costumes, tarot cards, and disposable syringes. The project is deeply personal and also, I hope, euphorically relatable to other trans and queer people. To a cisgender audience, I want to invite you into my body and my experience of it. It’s intimate and strange, but I hope you join me all the same.
Images by Gabrielle Gowans
Pray For Us, 2024
cotton embroidery on recycled velvet and cotton, saint medallions, crucifix, glass beads, and silver findings. Crochet cotton border on laminated print
Inspired by early 20th century Catholic pocket shrines, this shrine is a gift to a dear friend. She is Catholic and I am Jewish, though neither of us would have described ourselves using as such when we were younger. Neither of us grew up religious, but we followed a similar path to G-d: we got really sick, and our lives fell apart. In the Book of Isaiah, the prophet writes “G-d gives strength to the weary… those who hope in G-d will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
Everybody worships, one way or another. We both learned that the hard way, in eating disorder treatment. I went into religion dubious and angry. I still don’t know if I believe in G-d. What I do know is that have found is intense relief in community, in ritual. I have found joy in traditions, comfort in prayer, healing in purpose. Audrey knows what it is to be weary, what it is to be hungry. She know what it is to be given new life. So this is for us both: for her, and for me. An expression of love, an expression of faith.
lover's eye, returned
lover's eye, returned
lover's eye, returned
Lover’s Eye, Returned, 2024
cotton embroidery thread on cotton gauze, brass bezel, blue lace agate beads
A lover’s eye is a promise, a token, a talisman. Eye miniatures were popular as necklaces, broaches, and rings throughout the 18th century. Intimate, they allowed the wearer to bring their lover with them wherever they went. I embroidered my eye for my lover in 2022. She gave it back.
Victorian-Inspired Embroidered Puzzle Purse, inside
Victorian-Inspired Embroidered Puzzle Purse, first fold
Victorian-Inspired Embroidered Puzzle Purse, outside
Victorian-Inspired Embroidered Puzzle Purse, Folded
Victorian-Inspired Embroidered Puzzle Purse, detail
Victorian-Inspired Embroidered Puzzle Purse, detail
Victorian-Inspired Embroidered Puzzle Purse, 2023
ink, cotton and silk thread on cotton
The puzzle purse is a form of itogami, the origami of folded purses. In mid 19th century England and the United States, the puzzle purse became a popular form for love notes and Valentines because they could hold little trinkets (rings, miniatures, locks of hair) and did not require an envelope to seal. This one is reimagined in cloth: the embroidery is permanent, but the message can be ironed away and rewritten. A love that lasts because it can be changed and be made new.
Images by Rachel Curtis
Wearing the Dead Woman’s Clothes (2021) first layer
Wearing the Dead Woman’s Clothes (2021) second layer
Wearing the Dead Woman’s Clothes (2021) third layer
Wearing the Dead Woman’s Clothes (2021), layer four
Wearing the Dead Woman’s Clothes (2021)
Wearing the Dead Woman’s Clothes (2021)
Wearing the Dead Woman’s Clothes: The Burial Costume of the Huldremose Woman, 2021
leather, cotton, vinyl, synthetic fur, rabbit bone, amber, wool
In ‘Bog Bodies: Face to Face With the Past’, Melanie Giles included an image of the Huldremose woman, a bog mummy found in Denmark thought to have been ritually interred because of the preservative qualities and subsequently liminal nature of bogs. I fell in love with her worn under cloak, the plaid of her skirt. I decided on impulse, to wrap myself in her world. Here I am: wearing the dead woman’s clothes.
Image by Isaac Roussak
Want to Collaborate?
Whether you are an artist, writer, designer, historian, researcher, or someone with an idea you want to reimagine in textiles, contact me to talk collaboration or commission.