Final Thesis Show

Over the last few years the majority of my writings have been thesis related and on a completely different platform! It was a lot and I did not have the space to upkeep my regular personal website along with my academic pursuits and family responsibilities. Because of this my work transitioned from trauma (something I still want to visit as started with The Body Remembers series) but to what it means to be a female artist within the domestic space. My experiences reflect my status as wife, mother, and what it means to balance domesticity with creativity.

This MFA Thesis Project explores how repetitive domestic labour in the home, predominantly carried out by women and in particular my experience as mother and caregiver informs my MFA research. The Thesis Project artworks range in scale from small handheld intimate embroidered textile pieces to large abstract paintings created on my kitchen floor with tools such as brooms, toilet brushes and rags that are commonly associated with women’s work. I use a minimal colour palette of black, greys and gold to highlight the sombre and never ending actions of daily domestic maintenance. By giving the marks presence and weight, I am demanding that they be acknowledged and the audience feels the relentlessness of activities that never seem complete. I incorporate concepts addressed by artists such as Mierle Laderman Ukeles and her documentation of invisible labour as well as Janine Antoni who physically put herself into the act of art making with her body. Ultimately, my practice draws on these artistic influences to generate artwork that speaks to my lived experience as an artist, mother and caregiver.

Megan Carroll Interruptions, 2022/2023
Embroidery Thread on Cotton
3’x 3’x 2’

Megan Carroll, Sweeping Meditations, 2023
Chinese Ink on Paper
4’x 30’

Megan Carroll, Acts of Care Series, 2022/2023
Embroidery thread, Cotton, Linen, Gold Gouache, Fire
Various sizes, 10”, 9”, 8”, square.

The Purple Shore Crab.

For my MFA we were asked to write an auto-ethnography. A piece of writing that situates oneself within the context of our area of interest. I have been talking a lot of how the BODY REMEMBERS and using that idea I explored more of my own personal stories and how they are apart of me. I wrote about memories that I had from the time I was 4yrs old until I was about 15. Some are sweet nostalgic stories and others verge on troubling and uncomfortable. As I wrote them, I relived them. This writing was very hard on my physically. It cause my heart rate to increase, I got anxious and sweaty. I would have to go for walks to release energy and process the emotions that were arising. It became clear that I needed to get the stories off of the page and into the world. In a way the stories have become alive to me. Each one is a few paragraphs long, ending with a food pairing. In almost all of them I had a visceral food memory and at times I could taste and smell the food I was describing even if I hadn’t eaten it in years.

The Purple Shore Crab 2020.
Fabric, Drift Wood, Twine
36”x48”

My dad had a boat, he loved to go fishing. Originally from Saskatchewan, he was a prairie boy with a hankering for travel and the open water. When I was 4 or 5 he would wake me up early to go fishing with him, before it was even light out. We lived in Maple Ridge just outside of Vancouver but still an hour plus from marinas that he could launch his boat from- Ever so faint is the memory- those were in Port Moody. I am still in love with jagged coastlines, rocky coves and seaweed slicked stones. After one of our trips, back in our yard, my dad was cleaning out his boat and flushing the outboard motor, and a wee little purple crab came tumbling off. I tried to save it and keep it as a pet.
(Food Pairing- Fish and Chips)

I started off with a fond memory, that brings a little sadness to me, as my father passed away several years ago. After all the writing I was a bit worn out and I needed a simple entry point. I created it on a massive loom that I built using a furniture pallet, nails, hammer and a saw- it was so big at first it did not fit into my studio. The pink and blue fabrics are ones that my father bought me. We share the same maker gene so whenever he saw fabrics for sale in his local thrift store he would buy them. I’ve been holding on to them for years. The flannel I bought at a thrift store local to me and is similar to something he would have worn, being a heavy duty mechanic and a constant tinkerer. I have written the story of the crab onto the fibres that I have woven and created into the tapestry. I used my whole body to make this, the loom stands as tall as me. I would get up and down off the ground, walk and weave back and forth. I sweated, had body aches, headaches and gave myself blisters!

As I continue with my MFA, I really want to incorporate this process- writing, researching, building, weaving, sewing etc into my thesis. I see it evolving and growing.

Detail

Weaving Time Lapse

Just like story telling, weaving is process. It starts off as a tease, then slowly ever so slowly, as one weft is woven, then another and another a whole starts to emerge. I am only halfway through but like a good story I am already anticipating the end.

I have been writing stories about nostalgia, trauma and memory but I find the act of doing is creating a new narrative. Such as the time of day I am working on this, what I am wearing, what I am thinking about- are my kiddos doing their classes, do they have enough food options, is the laundry done? Do I need to vacuum? Already one of my warps broke, does that becomes part of the story? I left the buttons on the flannel and their bulk has made it uneven, so I added some extra yarn between the layers.