stitching x myself x together
by QueerAndBookish
As a Mad textiles artist, I'm interested in the creation of textile art - how it can be therapeutic, a space for (re)imagination, and a distracting, productive, and expressive occupation. I want to explore the role Mad textile works can play as art, a form of advocacy, and a site of resistance. I've embraced what zinester and academic Paula Cameron describes as 'seamfulness'. She states that seamfulness 'resists the traditional privileging of perfection' (seamlessness) and 'focuses on vulnerability and disruption as productive presence, naming normative limits as spaces for learning and transformation'.
This piece reflects how I am stitched together - of the ways that I am formed and reformed as a patchwork or interwoven threads, recognising what may be missed at the seam; being honest about the messy 'wrong side' of work, generally concealed but vital for existence; and how the act of stitching is integral to my putting myself together.