Artist Statement - Women's Work

May 2005.

I made the first piece out of scraps of fabric woven together around my feet. I'd dipped the cloth in beeswax after I'd read an old, and much more interesting version of the Red Shoes fairy tale, as retold by Clarissa Estes. Her version was about how much better the hand made shoes were than the shiny shop bought ones, even though they were crudely made. The shop bought ones kill the girl in the end as she dances herself to death.

This work with scraps, bits of leftover costume fabric and worn out clothes, started as an experiment to see if I could salvage something out of the things I still loved. I started to buy small jewels of fabric to add to my hoard of treasure. As I worked I found that any kind of weaving and binding was possible, any kind of shape or form.

Women work, patching up and smoothing out, making do, weaving into a shape that fits better. Somehow it all stays together, like homes kept from falling down by African women who add more mud each day to the walls.