The Blue, the Woven, and the Yucca
description
I sewed together hand dyed, hand woven, and hand pulled pieces of textiles and paper. My work is heavily dependent on other people, their stories, and the landscapes from which they come. I am interested in the stories that enable my story to be told, and I approach my life and art making by rendering our relations to one another. I see weaving and craft practices as a manifestation of how we are related, and in this way, see craft as a technology to explore and embody notions of kinship across time and geographies. In May 2019, I returned to Taiwan with my mother, who was born there, to learn the basics of Atayal foot loom weaving with master weaver Sayun Yuraw in an effort to explore the ramifications and optimistic possibilities of Han Chinese settlers and the Taiwanese diaspora living in kinship among Taiwan’s indigenous. The swatch of paper comes from fallen Hesperoyucca whipplei leaves that I foraged from the mountains near my home in southern California. This yucca plant has long been a being of sustenance for the symbiotic whipplei moth pollinator, the chaparral landscape of California, as well as for the indigenous peoples of the Los Angeles Basin, such as the Tongva, Tataviam, and Chumash peoples. The indigo dyed cloth is a nod to the global connections that were made upon colonization, as well as an intimate redemption of the ancestral practices that were forgotten and dormant due to global capitalism’s infringement on land and peoples. These swatches come from the earth, and acknowledge the specificity and context from which they come. The swatches embody the legacy of time, exchange, and encounter within an interlocking web of change, and with them, I ask you to reflect on the optimistic power of story:
Where do you come from?
What does this place smell, taste, sound, look, and feel like?
What is the story of your family?
How does your origin story give you magic?
process photos
material list
Indigo (iron vat) dyed cotton, warp-faced cotton textile woven on the Atayal loom, foraged and hand pulled paper from chaparral yucca (scientific name: Hesperoyucca whipplei)
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