“in good company”
canvas, cotton, thread; machine embroidery, 2018
45.5 x 32 (3)
Usually bearing a slogan or design, the banner is meant to announce or proclaim. Instead of reading “grand reopening” or “spectator area”, these quilted banners bear witness to all the good that is in my life with an embroidered symbol representing each person that has helped me along the way. Hand dyed and immensely cared for, the cloths depict the committed and intimate relationship I am in with my friends, family, and mentors. In the corner of each banner is an emblem that hearkens back to the idea of being on the shoulders of giants, being lifted by the accomplishments of those before me, to find what I could not have reached alone.
I treat and consider my work as understandings of my gratitude – a physical manifestation of the idea that none of us are alone. My research positions kindness as an admittance into a state of mutual belonging and gratitude as the experience of universal wholeness. In Good Company, more than any other of my works, exemplifies this philosophy in an arrival/deliverance of myself to this point in my life and artistic practice. My struggles resting on the axis’ of lesbian, woman, daughter, fine and community artist, I thusly rely on the strength of my friends, family, and mentors. My gratitude is not to be conflated with thankfulness, in which you give thanks in exchange for a gift. Gratitude does not yet distinguish between giver, gift, and receiver. I treat being grateful much like being an artist, as a state of being.
