Artist Statement
This work was created for submission to The Urban Futurities guest curated exhibition at Propeller Gallery. This call made me think about how the influence of consumerism has created a throw-away society.
In previous generations, things were not only made to last but people found creative ways to reuse scraps. Today, we subscribe to the saying out with the old and in with the new. As I tore strips of cloth and wove them together I thought about the rag rugs that my Grandmother had. Traditionally woven from recycled cloth, rag rugs were both, functional, warming cold floors, and beautiful.
I created a woven substrate from an old flannel bed sheet and from pieces of a bedroom curtain. I painted the fabric with encaustic medium, preserving and stiffening the fabric into a sculptural form.
