When I think of lace, I think of the symbolism of female frailty, innocence and sensuality. I remember wearing lace trim socks with my school shoes, wearing a white dress with a decorative sheer lace overlay under my 8th grade graduation gown and there are some stringy lace desirables buried in my underwear and hosiery tote. Lace, and the awareness of the visage of the wearer at their given age, has been a constant pattern in my life and I routinely find myself drawn to it, for it's technical and implied functions. Outside of lace adorning my clothing, I remember curtains in the kitchens of my mom, grandma and great aunt having similar trims, and the stiff doilies, hardened in the sugar water it was dipped in, laid beneath the porcelain dolls my great aunt Cleo kept in her living room. I used to trace the outer edges of the doilies with my fingers, following as the stiff outlines made a barrier through pockets of holes and the thinnest connections of fine cotton, to protect the daintier and more ornate lacework in the center. It was a repetitious ritual, to revisit connections to my mind, body and personhood as I aged, whenever I visited these elder women in my family.
And now when I think of lacework, I can’t help but embed the experiences, losses and triumphs, into its weblike structure. It feels like a good medium to express the mending and archiving of memories. It opens up the possibility of talking about my experiences through memories, whether they are whole or not, forming eyelets as I connect them as best I can with pieces lost to me through trauma. I can convey my sense of grrrrlhood through a pattern of shapes and weaving that has been with me my entire life. It’s symbolic, it’s a placeholder, it has importance and it is a universal pattern tied to femininity, grace, beauty and most importantly, strength and perseverance.
Using scallop trim on my paintings and printed photos on paper that closely resembles my complexion feels like I’m keeping those intimate moments safe, like the hardened edges of my great aunt doilies. I’m traversing the memories captured and keeping them safe, in my skin and wisps of memories, as I recollect them.
And now when I think of lacework, I can’t help but embed the experiences, losses and triumphs, into its weblike structure. It feels like a good medium to express the mending and archiving of memories. It opens up the possibility of talking about my experiences through memories, whether they are whole or not, forming eyelets as I connect them as best I can with pieces lost to me through trauma. I can convey my sense of grrrrlhood through a pattern of shapes and weaving that has been with me my entire life. It’s symbolic, it’s a placeholder, it has importance and it is a universal pattern tied to femininity, grace, beauty and most importantly, strength and perseverance.
Using scallop trim on my paintings and printed photos on paper that closely resembles my complexion feels like I’m keeping those intimate moments safe, like the hardened edges of my great aunt doilies. I’m traversing the memories captured and keeping them safe, in my skin and wisps of memories, as I recollect them.