I am currently working on an embroidery and applique piece for submission to “Working on the Bias,” an exhibit that is being curated by Rachel Epp Buller, regional coordinator of the Feminist Art Project, and Carolyn Wedel, director of the Watson Gallery in Salina, KS.
“Working on the Bias” will include work that explores gender and identity through work that physically or conceptually incorporates stitched, embroidered, or woven elements. The exhibit will serve as an accompaniment to the nationally touring exhibit, “A Complex Weave: Women and Identity in Contemporary Art,” coming to the Salina Arts Center this February.
In this new piece I continue to explore “the better angels of our nature,” this time in relation to climate change. Text, yet to be finalized, will accompany the farmer-angel holding the child-angel, hovering over a cracked-earth landscape representing the drought that Kansas is currently experiencing. These “better angels” are really our better selves doing our best to do what’s right. And in this case doing what is right must include not being naive about the future.
I am enjoying the coziness of working with cloth, needle, and thread while sitting by a fire on these cold January days, the first days of this new year.