For this residency project, I will explore love (in all its emotional and socio-political significance) through the lens of mother-daughter relationships. I plan to sew onto a tablecloth long enough to accommodate two seats, words and images that I would communicate to my mother about the lessons I’ve learned on life and love.
Part of this project includes using the studio as a cooperative space where I could host queer women living in NWA to share their ideas related to these notions of intimacy. The goal would be to create a safe, inviting space where two people could sit and talk about the lessons passed down from significant matriarchal figures, about the unexpected discoveries of queer love, and the manifestations of love as a political act of survival and resistance. As conversations take place, I will be integrating snippets of each person’s experience, along with those of my own, into the tablecloth, composing what will become a soft, physical archive of love and labor.
Additionally, I would use the remaining time and space at the residency to create artificial floral arrangements on used shoes – a nod to the crafted language passed onto me by my grandmother and as a new conceptual branch from my ceramic shoe-focused practice. These pieces would sit on shelves attached to the wall to compose an ever-growing bloom. I am interested in taking this idea further by potentially hosting a run-away show featuring these wearable flower arrangements or a couple workshops focused on re-imagining discarded objects.
