Folha de Corona
2020
Diary entry from 27 June 2020
So, this project began on a whim, an urge, an intuition to start stitching ivy leaves together into a textile. The original thought was to make it into a cape. Why a cape I’m not entirely sure, left overs from the Soft Armor project? As I began initial thoughts about it and its potential trajectory were about assembly of multiple, how many stitches, how many leaves, how the leaves age and change, connecting one to another to many, the light that shines through when held against a window, the veins in the leaves. It is about all these things, but it's also about more, I’ve felt. But what more I hadn’t been able to determine. As interesting as each of those ideas are, they maybe felt surface level. I’ve been working on this project for some time now, maybe 2 or 3 months, continuing to add leaves and stitches without obsessing about what it really means or what the next step is. Following the Makergraph formula I thought about making drawings, but I’ve been reluctant to do so because I didn’t just want it to be a survey drawing, documenting what I can already see. The drawing should have an agenda, or be experimental and reveal something new. Makergraph taught me that my way of working is very process oriented - I am naturally drawn to the accumulation of many small things, of slow processes that amass, repetitive and accumulative movements and assemblies. This can mean a slow growth and relies on number, I guess, for external impact. One thing I’ve been aware of from Makergraph, and through looking at past works is that this is my intuitive, natural way of working. It may come across as tedious and time consuming but I think this repetitive, monotonous process of stitching leaf on leaf, of shaving down a 2x4 stroke by stroke, of embellishing a veil disk by disk, as a way for me to get into a flow, a rhythm, a meditation. Since I began this project, I’ve fallen into a saturday morning ritual where I wake up slow, and then spend the next few hours on the floor or in my bed with a cup of coffee or 2, stitching leaves together. Sometimes with music, sometimes without. And it dawned on me this morning that maybe the reason I’m drawn to these tiny, slow growing assemblies is because of the mental respite the process provides me with. It is meditative in the sense that I am creating and being productive and yet my mind is free to flow and wonder. It is truly calming, soothing and makes me feel like I’m in flow. It’s the mental freedom and space that the process provides me with thatI’m drawn to, that I can get lost in…
The past few months have been an emotional rollercoaster with corona and working from home, being away from friends and family, all the anxiety and uncertainty that currently exists in the world, seeing someone new and different and going through the ups and downs and learnings of a new relationship, and then the Black Lives Matter protests and revelations. It’s been a surreal time. And what my leaves project has done is give me the space and freedom from all of that, allow me to ruminate on what I choose to, in peace. It’s given me mental space and has become a kind of tapestry of anonymous thoughts, feelings and memories, a kind of safety deposit box for my thoughts, feelings and memories to roam free, to track them (leaf by leaf, stitch by stitch) without defining them. I’d like to quantify/count the piece as a way to see how many hours of safety/peace this project has given me, but also as a way to think back and document all the thoughts/feelings/memories I’ve experienced while going through this. It will obviously be a bit skewed, done in retrospect, but I think it would be a good way of unpacking and recalling a peculiar time in my life, in history. And not so defined, the edges of memories blend into one another and as a whole it marks times and progress and process. It could end with the timeframe of this project or it could continue to grow and function as an open diary and safe space for me where the mundaneness of the task allows for the free flowing of thought, a place that can safely be returned to at any point…
So I guess, understanding this as the significance of my project - a camouflage emotion repository - I now have a concept for how I’d like the drawing, text and photos of this project to proceed. This requires some more thought and analysis but it is a great spring from which to leap next! And, FYI, the name is derived from the name of a song someone sent me. The song played on repeat providing background music, and thoughts of the person on repeat too, occupying a significant portion of the mental space.
