Art, Art History and Design, School of
Date of this Version
2017
Abstract
Works from my project, Mapping Nebraska, a drawn, stitched and digitally imaged cartography of the state (physical and psychological) where I live were exhibited in 2017 at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska in an exhibition, Regarding Nebraska, coinciding with the sesquicentennial of Nebraska statehood. As stated in the exhibition:
“I map the state where I live and document an internal and external landscape. I work with cloth and with piecing and quilting because of their references to human scale, human touch and human occupation. With image and stitch I communicate the beauty and diversity of Nebraska, revealed over time and across distance. I want to attend to what is unseen as well as what is visible and value what is lost as well as what persists.”
In this public reading I go “behind the stitches” of the work in the gallery to consider the development of the work on display by considering four interrelated themes that informed my making: “the cradle | the grasses the water the beauty | the loss the fragility the resilience | the fear the faith.” The text of this talk is accompanied by images from my 9,000 miles of travel in the state as well as images of some of the work in the exhibition.