We Are All One People
Stitched in time and place express the lived experience of class as expressed in fiber art and craft in a global economy of abundant availability of commercially produced consumer goods. In some ways the denim “paintings” refer to/remind one of traditional landscapes like “We Are All One People” to the right, or “Border Line” at the bottom of this page.
These paintings use denim both as a pigment and as a canvas.
Stitched to the Earth #8: Migrant Labor
Stitched to the Earth #9: Grandmother's Garden
Stitched to the Earth #10: Day labor
Landquilt Series: The Plains Before Invasion
Landquilt Series: Yellow Horizon Line #2 (The Gold Rush of 1849)
Stitched to the Earth #2: In Memory of the Family Farm Lost to Foreclosure
Stitched to the Earth #1: In Joy and Sorrow
Stitched to the Earth #11: (Sharecropper) 26"H x 18"w x 1" D 2008Landquilt Series: Yellow Horizon Line, Fabric, Denim & Oil, 24"W x 18"H '04 Pieced denim, painted & raw canvas 26"W x 22"H
Stitched To the Earth 12: 20"H x 16"W x 1"D 2008
Landquilt Series: Black Horizon Line, Denim, Fabric, Oil, 28"W x 24"H'04 Pieced denim, painted & raw canvas 26"W x 22"H
Stitched To the Earth# 4: We Leave Traces of Our Lives 36"H x 48"W x 2"D, 2005
Stitched To the Earth # 7 : Miner's Blues 16"H x 18"W x 1"D 2006 (In the collection of Barry & Joan Cotter)
Stitched To the Earth #6: Crossroads, 30"H x 24"W x 1"D 2006
Stitched To the Earth #5: Migrations 2005 (Donation to the Roger Park Health Center 2/08)
Stitched to the Earth #3: Sky, Earth. Water (alternate subtitle: Laundry Hung out to Dry) 40"W x 32"H x 2"D, 2005
Artist Statement
Miner’s Blues and Migrant Labor are constructed from fragments of blue jeans which have been thrown away. Often I have rescued them from dumpsters. Sometime they are give to me by friends who know my work. These used jeans have a beautiful patina in the heavily worn and torn sections.
Miners Blues is a landscape. At the top is a blackened sky, dark with clouds and harsh weather or polluted air. Below the horfizon line we see a cross-section of the scarred and excavated seams of minerals below the earth’s surface. It is mined by men whose work is dangerous, unhealthy and difficult, but necessary to them and their families’ survival. “Blues” has a double meaning, referring both to the jeans they wear and to the hardships endured to earn their daily bread.
Migrant Labor is about the roads travelled in search of work. These fragments are from the bottom of the pant leg, literally where the foot leaves and re-connects to the ground. The opened hems of pant legs have faded to beautiful patterns suggestive of aerial views of railroad ties, roadways, and crop furrows. The impact of the migrant’s footsteps leave behind an imprint of use as a tactile x-ray of the workers’ labor and migrations.
Border LIne
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