Labor of Love

Berry Grove

2012, 13’x5’x9’    Installation: polyester, wool, dye, nylon tube, sand, sound

“Berry Grove” is an extension of the “Bullet Cloth” series.  These are a combination of traditional and contemporary tie-dyeing processes with a conceptual contradiction. Instead of beans for the tying process, I use bullets as an American material (denying the original purpose of use).  Bullets explode to destroy; beans sprout to grow.  “Berry Grove” is the most recent piece using the same technique, contemporary shibori (Japanese tie-dyeing), to hold the texture and keep the cast bullet forms.  It is like a bamboo grove, but one producing berries.  I am connecting the Japan and Northwest (US) using a combined form.  Each bullet shape has to be tied and dyed in order to have a design, just as we have to pick each berry to eat.  Everything involves labor. 

Berry Grove photos: David Scherrer

Symbol of Weaving

2013, 36”x17”x 12”    Installation: wax, lighting table, cloth, thread, bobbin, sound

I experienced using the most primitive thread winder in Kyushu, Japan when I was learning the process of Kurume kasuri (weft ikat) with a master weaver.  They use a simple bobbin and a small bamboo stick; they wind quickly and beautifully while the wheel makes turning sounds.  I thought of Ghandi's spinning wheel that was the symbol for the movement for social and economic equality.  I also thought about traditional stories such as “The Crane Lady” from Japan and “Sleeping Beauty” from Europe. 

 A wound spool is the most beautiful way to see thread and is a spiritual form before it becomes cloth. For Kurume Kasuri, the randomly resisted area on the indigo-dyed spool is adjusted one by one to make certain designs.  I wanted to cast the accumulated threads with transparent material.