My piece “Mother’s Milk: Meditation on 7,300 Hours of Nursing My Children" is a piece that combines tapestry and embroidery techniques in a way that I think of as “mixed media” but as it is all Textile Art, I’m not sure that it counts. It is an exploration in marking time and making visible the largely unseen, unpaid, and underappreciated labor that goes into parenting generally and parenting small children in particular.
The piece makes use of a milk/wool yarn for both the french knots and as a part of the tapestry element. This yarn fascinated me when I first discovered it as a young mother nursing a small child with years yet ahead of me as a chestfeeding parent. It is made from fiber made from protein derived from milk and mixed with wool fibers. It has a gorgeous shine and drape and resonated deeply with me as a fellow mammal actively engaged in making copious amounts of daily nourishment from my body with which to feed my young.
The french knots in this piece are a gesture at a mark-making, time-keeping, practice of abstracting emotion and labor into tangible points. It is deeply inspired by Patti Maciesz’s (check out her Instagram!) work with #billthepatriarchy and the Invisible Labor Union.
I submitted this piece to the Spring 2024 juried art show “Food” at Fairbanks Arts Association. I was extremely pleased and honored when it was not only accepted but won an Honorable Mention from the juror!
