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This is a jacket called
A Coat for Two Occasions,
to my funeral and cremation.
once upon a time,
and they were having
a closeout on joss paper.
sometimes called spirit money,
that is burned ceremoniously
at some Asian funerals.
to the heavens,
it's believed that
your thoughts and your prayers
are carried to your loved ones.
such a beautiful ritual,
that I wanted to be able
to burn my own joss paper
at my own demise.
piano plays softly
I like that tension
that happens between the funny
and the horrific,
and that which is beautiful
and is repulsive.
Those tensions
keep me interested
and I think that they
help engage the viewer.
a maker of paper garments.
the majority of our garments,
brought up around fabric,
making doll clothes,
making puppets.
And so for me,
it was familiar territory.
electronic music plays
These are called
corsets of tallis,
and they are works
from a larger series.
about ten of these corsets.
My work had
always been about the body.
I've been fascinated by the body
so many different ways
to look at it and talk about it.
But then I just got so
frustrated as a graduate student
painting about the body.
And one day it was like this
lightbulb went off over my head.
And I just thought I should be
working three-dimensionally.
This one is made with bottle
caps, in the summertime,
theaters, I pick them up.
surfaced with dehydrated sole.
It makes reference
to skin itself.
This last one here is surfaced
with dehydrated cherry tomatoes
and then it's lined with these
tassels made of human hair.
Hair is a real current thing
in my work.
It represents
so many different things.
told me that eating tomatoes
would make me big
and strong and hairy-chested.
I recognized
that chest hair
was appropriate for a man,
but not, of course, for a woman.
I stopped eating tomatoes
and I avoided it for 20 years.
I like to incorporate materials
that help me tell my stories.
So it made sense to me that I
should use those very materials,
that tormented me.
to eat tomatoes
and you should see
how hairy he turned out!
This is a piece called Choker.
how my seasonal allergies
appear to be worsening as I age.
During the summertime,
when Minnesota
I am feeling my worst,
decongestants on a daily basis
are falling from the sky.
So it's about that kind of
cyclical process
and also the kind of choking
and physical effects
during the summertime.
whirring
of my friend, Trin.
with handmade paper
because it was the thing that
most aligned or related to skin.
I can turn them into yardage
by adhering
the small sheets together.
I'm generally pulling sheets
of paper and creating yardage
to make the garments, though
sometimes I cast the paper.
electronic music plays
Then if I cover it with things
that help me tell the stories.
When I was in Austria,
hometown of Spitz
and when I was there,
of my family,
the apricots were in season,
from the trees.
My husband and I ate apricots
until we could eat no more.
I don't worry
about preserving my work.
The body, of course,
will change and decay in time,
and so it's appropriate
that my work should do the same.
piano plays softly
I love making the work.
I love the material experience
of handling the work,
of stitching the garments up,
embellishing them by
spending time with the work,
and reflecting
upon the experience.
Equally so,
I love telling the stories,
nod their heads in agreement.
doing anything else.