Doily for Nani

This work celebrates anonymous women, crocheting and creating, making doilies and antimacassars, the meditative aspects of repetitive gestures, the slip of a stitch, the round and round she goes, the desire to decorate the daily toil, make something fine of it. 

This work celebrates my grandmothers’ generation and their making. Their hands always busy with a crochet hook, making blankets, scarves, hats, and crocheted beaded necklaces. They were refugees, they had lost almost everything yet they were survivors. They created in the face of displacement. This work says yes, let’s not merely make decor, let’s take up space. 

I am enthralled by repetitive gestures, the meditation, and the obsession of it. The risky process of cutting, when there’s no turning back. I’m calmed by the interplay of negative and positive shapes and the way light changes on reflective surfaces. 

This work plays with perception, layers of surface, cut-outs, shadows, overlay each other and create an optical experience that is both soothing and exhilarating.

The materials are fine art materials including acrylic paint on polyester film with cutouts. LIke the women-makers they celebrate, this work may look fragile but is quite durable.