How do you read a garment/ textile and what does it mean to do so? In the blog post about caligraphy, I mentioned this quote from Boyer’s “Sewing” article, (2015, p. 26) about how she thinks with this “renewed commitment to learning to be what I am not”. In thinking about textiles, garments and wearable art, there is a necessity to remain patient to receive the best result and take the time to understand everything and do it with care.This care is similar to what I mentioned in the introduction of this digital portfolio. It can be self care, but also care for others.
Thinking about reading garments and textiles, means that everything that we wear has meaning, and that what we choose to wear is intentional and can express some agency (or maybe lack of agency in some cases). In garments having meaning also reveals that they have stories as well. They have a beginning, from what the materials were made from and how they were grown, harvested and eventually transformed into what it is now. In the process of transformation and different stages and different machines and hands it’s been passed through also reveals something that we can try to find meaning from. These materials and garments seem simple in function, but in reality, are complex, transforming into something that has me questioning the items that I am wearing now. Boyer also seems to get to this point of questioning, as she mentions how “it was easy to become fixed on the idea of a single shirt, one with two pieces, no facings, not even set-in sleeves. What can be done? How can two flat pieces joined together in four places accommodate a grown woman’s torso, not at all flat, and with arms often in motion?” (p. 25) I considered this as I created the pieces in this section in which I created a mask using a lily pad, a mitten, and a cross stitch.
This was the final product of the mask that I created using the Lilypad. one side was more for comfort, while the other side lit up with yellow lights.
To create this mask, instead of buying all of the separate parts needed, I decide to buy the starter kit, aimed at children, in hopes that the instructions would be easy to follow.
The kit cam with a lot of supplies, including felt, the wires, thread, a needle, the battery, stencils, lights and instructions.
This was the other side of the mask that lit up.
I couldn’t get a great picture of the mask lit up, but I did get a picture with the lights on. The little switches hard to turn on and off, but I managed. I was originally going to just have a plain yellow mask, but when my mom saw it, she claimed that it looked too boring, so she gave me some rhinestones that she had laying around and I hot glued them on.
For the wearable art textual practice, I decided to create a mitten. In class, the student who led this practice talked about the Black madonna. she also spoke of some patterns that were symbolic or represented something, which made me start thinking about the symbols used in quilting about the Underground Railroad. When I was younger, there were some women who came to the church I grew up coming to, to talk about this. (The church used to be on the Wickham plantation, so there was a historical connection to their visit.) I remembered two symbols that they shared, which was about the North Star being a guide and the symbol for crossroads which formed a diamond pattern.
I tried to consider this as I made a mitten, something for warmth through a hard journey. In the middle is a diamond that is supposed to represent as star, as well as along the bottom. To create this mitten I used sheets of felt, needle, thread, hot glue and beads.
To create this cross stitch I used a ready made kit that included all of the materials that I needed. I tried to create a pattern online of a QR code originally, but the pattern seemed like it would be overwhelming to create.
Instead, I decided to stitch a piece of cotton. As we considered textiles and production, I was really curious to know how we could read our materials and how did that contribute to meaning.
As I finished the piece of cotton, I decide to add the question “read me”. I wanted this piece to be something that somebody questioned. And make somebody wonder, “why is she asking me to read a piece of cotton”?