Marking Time
At home during New York’s shelter-at-home orders, I thought about the myriad lived stories world-wide during this pandemic. I wondered what I would remember and hold onto from these difficult months. I thought about what connects us to one another.
Puttering in my studio I sort through bags of collected ephemera. Objects that resonate, evoking memories of people, places, and experiences. Cocoons dyed with oak gall ink, tea and coffee, salvaged teabags from the dying. Birds’ nests, thorns, eggshells and vintage dress patterns and sheet music; browned and brittle with evocative discoloration reminiscent of watercolor. Empty weed pods, rusty metal pieces, burned scraps of paper. I layer and collage materials onto tiny tea bag canvases, then stitch and pierce with thread and thorns. They are daily meditations, composing and reclaiming memory and personal history brought into my current experience. It is reparative, healing and acts as a psychological and emotional anchor in tumultuous times. I find meaning through the making.
I planned to do one for each day in lock-down. As weeks unfurled, and the outside world became more chaotic and intrusive, I decided to continue these until I am vaccinated and able to visit loved ones without anxiety. I collage and stitch in a stubborn insistence of hope, a resistance to fear, and in the knowledge that this too shall pass. Using what is on hand, making do. I become aware of an inner refrain as I create. I am here. As witness, as attestant. I am still here.
