“If what your country is doing seems to you practically and morally wrong, is dissent the highest form of patriotism?”
Not In Our Names
2024
Two dissent banners made with familial fabric. The text pieces were hand stitched while traveling in Ireland and in part while on residency there. The stars and stripes fabrics were my grandmother’s make-do tablecloths used for our big family get togethers on the Fourth of July (some food stains still present). Sewing with my other grandma’s machine, and reusing old scrap fabric, thread, and curtains in their construction.
My grandmother was the moral compass who taught us all a strong sense of right and wrong. I honor her legacy with with this transmutation of her tablecloths into banner flags of dissent. I was thinking about Palestine when I designed these and all other state sanctioned violence upheld by the American government.
Not In Our Names / We Do Not Consent, Hand- and Machine-Sewn Cloth Banner, Front + Back (Fabric, Thread, Screen Print, Wood), 45’’x21’’, 2024
Humanity Screams
2024 / Ongoing
Textual embroidery work on a WWII medic towel, begun while traveling in Ireland and in part while on residency there. Before I left, I lightly screen printed text onto this WWII medic towel (my grandmother’s brother’s, who was a medic in the Pacific during the war) - to serve as a guide for embroidery that I’ve been doing here. I’m thinking about Palestine, and also Ukraine, the Congo, Sudan - and all the other times and places where we don’t learn, going round and round, repeating the same haunting atrocities on one another. Again, again, and again.
Original WWII medic towel, 20’’x28’’.
While in Ireland, at the Blind Piper pub, I heard a heartfelt WWI anti-war song (Green Fields of France) performed live with traditional Irish instruments. A ballad to the futility and inanity of war. It was especially poignant, being played as a memorial to a local Ukranian woman who died - having arrived here recently as a refugee from the violent attacks happening in her homeland. One set of the lyrics struck me hard as they exactly echoed my text on the medic towel (‘again, and again, and again, and again’) - in both words and in sentiment. (Thanks to Vincent Hyland for sharing the song’s history.)