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.

Story Telling

I shared an image of my father and I a couple of posts back. It told a story about a father, daughter and a purple crab! Though I like the illustration, it is an illustration and I have been working to get off the page! I want to use my stories to talk about how reliving memories, good ones such as that one, and traumatic ones can be healing.

Loom Building

I’m really getting into the connection between The Body Remembers and the act of stitching and weaving. The fibres of the material are woven and connect warp to weft, sometimes they have gaps, other times they are tight. A piece of fabric- I now have learned is not fabric until it is removed from the loom, and is given time to relax- settled into itself.

One of my goals is to get off the page, so the past two weeks I have been taking a weaving class through the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn NY. One thing I can say about the global pandemic is that though physically we can not connect with others, it has created an alternative learning environment.

I did not do much weaving in this class, but I absorbed what was being said and watched as our instructor demonstrated, and defined terms. She kept saying ANYTHING could be a loom.

I have had this giant wood palette for months now, my husband has tried to throw it out several times, but I kept saying no, I am going to use it for something? Long story short, I figured it out!

First off when I say giant, it was so big that we could hardly close my door when we got it into the studio, and I would not be able to stand it upright as planned, unless I made it smaller. But with a trip to the hardware store, a few supplies and couple hours of work I converted it into a rudimentary Loom.

I’m pretty excited to start working on it and weave my own stories into the warp.