I crochet my childhood home from memory, and this installation is the bedroom I once shared with my twin sister. Making this work is a meditative – and anxious – practice of understanding myself in relation to my sister and our twinness.
Crochet is a series of units: stitches that make up rows, rows that make up shapes, and shapes that make up both image and object. It echoes the way memories, relationships, and experiences seem to make up a person; the way rooms make up a house; and the way individuals make up a family. I use yarn to build shapes stitch by stitch, crafting an image to interpret the emotional memory of the space we inhabited as a unit.
A relationship fraught with petty bickering, clenched teeth, and arm pinching is also one of inherent, sometimes tense, allyship, inside jokes, and comfort. Perhaps our relationship, and the room that housed it, is defined by difference more than similarity – a sort of melty ego mess with disparate parts that don’t yet know their individual shapes. They are defined by the other and changing all the time.
photos courtesy of LaiSun Keane Gallery, photographed by Dan Watson
Dresser B, crochet with yarn, wire, 45x54in
Dresser A, crochet with yarn, wire, 41x53in
Polka dot bed: sea star birthday, crochet with yarn, wire, cotton stuffing, ~6x8ft
Striped bed: sea star birthday, crochet with yarn, wire, cotton stuffing, ~6x8ft
Sleeping Beauty Sweater, crochet with yarn, wire, 20x14in
Cinderella Sweater, crochet with yarn, wire, 21x15in
Door B, crochet with yarn, wire, 36x80in
Door A, crochet with yarn, wire, cotton stuffing, 38x80in
The girl who pushed Tyra over the edge, crochet with yarn, wire, 25x24in
School St. Window (with blind), crochet with yarn, wire, cotton stuffing, 25x50in
Church St. Window (with blind), crochet with yarn, wire, cotton stuffing, 24x52in
Nursing home egg hunt: first prize, crochet with yarn, wire, 16x20in
Piano recital: consolation prize, crochet with yarn, wire, 21x20in
This is a story about a girl named Lucky..., crochet with yarn, wire, 14x15in
We can't be friends anymore, Bella..., crochet with yarn, wire, 14x19in
Tiny women in tiny homes, crochet with yarn, wire, 15x17in
Wicker Drawers, crochet with yarn, wire, 36x45in
B Pillow, crochet with yarn, wire, 17x19in
A Pillow, crochet with yarn, wire, 15x13in
Dot pillow
