A multi-media artist, my creative practice shares knowledge and stories through communal activities and performances. Everyday objects and implements are sorted, archived, displayed, or used as a means of encouraging an audience to join in, or engage in dialogue. Many of these things have a personal resonance through belonging to family members or being found on walks together. Thus personal history connects to the familial and communal.
Sewing and knitting are tactile skills which are often passed on from one generation to another and become the primary tools of communication. My recent work explores these creativities as autobiographic narratives of grandmother, mother and daughter. Sharing this knowledge provides a way for maker and viewer to engage in the experience together. By taking up the box of needles and threads remembered from childhood, and playing out related acts in a gallery space, the intimate skills of crafting create new social connections which are often more important than the skill or craft being shared. Everyday objects are given new purpose as starting points for other objects.
Making and re-working things by hand and having the flexibility to change and adapt them is important in my work. The processes carried out in making are planned, precise and repetitive. Using ritual to write new histories for those things that other people have ignored, adds value to the discarded. A small pile of stones is left on a beach for others to find. A thread is added to worn fabric. Such residues are about memory and stories handed on.
