Chained to My Loom
2024
Cotton warp
Hand dyed bamboo weft
AVL Dobby
This work explores the tension between material softness and visual rigidity, employing a traditionally feminized medium to represent the hard, unyielding form of a chain. This juxtaposition disrupts conventional assumptions about textile practices, often seen as delicate or passive, by reframing them as spaces of discipline, complexity, and contradiction. The act of making itself becomes a site of obsessive focus, repetitive, compulsive, and consuming, qualities seldom associated with femininity or textile labor. This intensity invites a reconsideration of the emotional depth embedded in the labor of historical weavers, whose work has frequently been idealized as gentle or meditative. The piece suggests that beneath the surface of this romanticized view, weaving may have also been a practice of rigorous mental engagement, fixation, and psychological complexity, reflecting a more nuanced experience of labor and creativity.
Chain Samples #1-2
2024
Cotton warp
Hand dyed bamboo weft
AVL Dobby