D R E S S C O D E N A R R A T I V E S
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DRESS CODE NARRATIVES
I am in love with, and conflicted about fashion. Clothing, often the bridal gown, figured prominently in my past work. Other series used embodied and empty dresses as both surrogate and metaphor. For me clothing is a potent vehicle to convey ideas about the spirit and matter, ritual and transformation.
In DRESS CODE NARRATIVES, compelling tales in the anthology, Women’s Indian Captivity Narratives, first and secondhand accounts from the 1500s through the 1800’s, were my inspiration. As settlers moved westward, Native Americans, endlessly exploited and marginalized, retaliated to survive. White women and children were sometimes taken as hostages, or as replacements for family members who had perished in earlier battles.
The accounts of the women I depict are part of our nation’s conflicts, and our collective histories. In cobbling together these dresses, cutting and pasting cultures and perspectives side-by-side, understanding and new meaning emerges. The truths of these stories are simultaneously simple and complex, transparent and layered, reshaped through the passage of time and in the re-telling, much like memory itself.
http://maineartsjournal.com/umva-member-submissions-summer-2017-draft/
1 9 9 9 - 2 0 0 0
DRESS CODE NARRATIVES
I am in love with, and conflicted about fashion. Clothing, often the bridal gown, figured prominently in my past work. Other series used embodied and empty dresses as both surrogate and metaphor. For me clothing is a potent vehicle to convey ideas about the spirit and matter, ritual and transformation.
In DRESS CODE NARRATIVES, compelling tales in the anthology, Women’s Indian Captivity Narratives, first and secondhand accounts from the 1500s through the 1800’s, were my inspiration. As settlers moved westward, Native Americans, endlessly exploited and marginalized, retaliated to survive. White women and children were sometimes taken as hostages, or as replacements for family members who had perished in earlier battles.
The accounts of the women I depict are part of our nation’s conflicts, and our collective histories. In cobbling together these dresses, cutting and pasting cultures and perspectives side-by-side, understanding and new meaning emerges. The truths of these stories are simultaneously simple and complex, transparent and layered, reshaped through the passage of time and in the re-telling, much like memory itself.
http://maineartsjournal.com/umva-member-submissions-summer-2017-draft/
