Pink Mantle
pink taffeta, cotton thread
2023
5 feet by 2 feet
“Pink Mantle” is a durational embroidery worked over a three year period. Thin, multicolored, cotton threads puncture and pucker the fabric in irregular smocking stitches. These stitches pull the fabric together, twisting it into an organically-generated form, a surface disrupted. “Pink Mantle” is always in tension. Through its making it became the shell of a garment, a created remnant. It became a soft body, the shell that protects. It became animal, alive by virtue of its duration.
Worked from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic until the conclusion of the United States’ official state of emergency, this piece was born from nightly practice. Begun in California and completed in Rhode Island it was an anchor during uncertain times. Stitches became the work that tied me to the present and reflected the twisting world. It is at once an expression of the care and devotion of daily practice and the unpredictability of that reality.
