thoughts on materiality

I am currently an artist in residence at the Morgan Art of Papermaking Conservatory and Educational Foundation (or just the Morgan Conservatory) where I’m making a ton of paper pulp — possibly too much. I’ve always had a fascination with materiality — grad school pushed me into really considering the materials as important as the ideas behind them. From there, it eventually evolved into a desperate need for the process, materials, and concept to line up in some way. This has led to a bit of an unfortunate situation where processes I once loved, like intaglio, have a difficult time fitting in to my current work.

One of my many buckets of fabric — mostly t-shirts, shredded and prepared to be soaked, then beaten into pulp.

This residency is a result of that material sensitivity. I proposed a project involving reclaiming clothing that no longer fit me and casting it onto large woodblocks — the blocks themselves have imagery based on my body carved into them, creating cast paper reliefs. The process is relatively cathartic for sure, and was meant to be a reclamation of the shame I felt surrounding my body because of these clothes existence. I still feel that’s a part of it, but my view of the work has shifted into thinking about how these clothes have haunted me over the years, how my body (and the things I do with/to it) is seen as monstrous, and how I am able to hold space for contradictory feelings.

The meaning behind these works is embedded deep within their materiality. Beyond the imagery of stretch marks, extended bellies and breasts, that they are made of clothing that no longer fit me is critically important in engaging with the work. But how do I communicate that in a meaningful yet concise way? Nuance is difficult to communicate in art, especially in its display. How can I communicate the complexity of my thought process without telling the viewer how they should interpret the work? Is it even possible to make work that can speak for itself?

I spent the entirety of my first week here just beating pulp. I didn’t start “making” until early into my second week, when I finally started inlaying my woodblocks with pulp then pushing freshly made sheets into them on top, creating the initial castings as imagined in my proposal. The process was a bit mind numbing — the blue pulp line work alone took me about 2-3 hours per block, and then I had to make sheets and push them into the block. At the same time, I was able to experiment. I was shown how to use a large 8x3 foot deckle box to create individual large scale sheets. The process allowed me to embed things into the sheets themselves and stayed wet and open long enough for me to continue working into and on top of them.

The first of my cast paper pieces finished and peeled off the block.

As I was preparing the clothing for pulping, I started placing the seams aside — I was using my rotary cutter not too dissimilarly to a vinyl plotter and cutting grids of rectangles, whereas cutting the seams required hand cutting with my shears. This practice led to a fun discovery; the ghost of a shirt that resides within the seams and collar. From here, I began to think about a greater theme of haunting and how that relates to my entire practice. These clothes I’ve been keeping a hold of have been haunting me for years. In some instances, I even bought shirts on the promise that I would lose weight in order to fit into them (spoiler alert; I never did). They are the residue of bodies I once had, bodies from that past, bodies that are no longer mine.

A concept shifting mid-project is exciting and terrifying. It happens rarely to me. I used to make fun of my husband, a writer, for describing the experience of a story shifting in front of their eyes because a character spoke to them. It’s never clear how literal this conversation is. How silly it sounds for the work to speak back to you, the creator, the arbiter of its own reality.

Then every once in a while, it happens to me. It happened to me the other day, when I saw the spectral nature of these shirts.

Two of my cast paper pieces with one of my ghostly shirts between them.

I enjoy what’s happening with the shirts immensely. It is so rare for work to speak back to me, to tell me what it wants, to inform me what it should be. I have a little over a week left and while some of that time is a bit restrictive due to needs in the facilities (as well as my own needs to rest). I have plenty of time to continue throwing pulp around and seeing what sticks. I’m searching deeper for the ghosts of my body, the residue of what it once was. Perhaps from here I can start to look forward and imagine future ghosts of my body and others. I have no idea what that means but it sounded smart.

ghost of my body (2), work in progress drying on the screen

I am haunted by my body, by what it signifies in social spaces, by how it is treated in other media. I am fat and queer. I am trying to find pleasure in my fatness as I find pleasure in my queerness, yet I cannot and will not deny the lingering shame and insecurities that remain in spite of that pleasure. I refuse to deny a reality where multiple things can be true, even seemingly contradictory things. I can find immense pleasure and shame in my body. I do find immense pleasure and shame in my body. I am capable of containing those multitudes.