Directions: You will work together to create a memorial to a shared experience or memory. Using Sophie Calle’s “Here Lie the Secrets of the Visitors of Green-Wood Cemetery” as a starting point you will work with your partner to create a memorial, monument, or memento to a memory or event that you both experienced.
Brainstorm: Gabriella and I met several hours to talk and generate ideas. We went from our experience in making friends, to our consciousness of health and carefulness, our diet of vegetables, to living in beachy cities. Our first idea was to create a bathroom shelf and fill empty face wash bottles with handwritten notes of our brainchatter and our worries as we both like to plan ahead. However, we settled up with the idea of moving to New York in the end.
We were in a rut to figure out how to express this experience without being too literal. Talking about materials helped steer us in a cohesive direction. I introduced the idea of weaving to express the move from our beachy, warm homes to then the now cosmopolitan city. Together, we spent hours at the Weaving Lab to start our weave. I had woven before but had forgotten a little bit, so it was nice to get back into this handicraft.
We worked on two pieces but planned ahead the color so that when they were sewn together, they would blend nicely. I worked on the “home” section and integrated organic, fluous forms to represent the waves of the beaches. The mint and white yarn are abstracted waves, the colorful yarn represents the joyous memories, while the tan represents the golden sunsets, which we were both lucky to see.
As we trail down, the colors become more navy and grey. Gabriella did straight weaves to represent the stoic, geometric skyscrapers. We both loved how the alternating colors gave the effect of the repeating windows.
After we had tucked in the ends of our pieces we met again to sew them together. We then added extra yarn on the bottom, which represents the uncertainty of the future. While the woven yarn represents memories made in the past, the loose yarn represents memories soon to be made.
It was nice sharing stories together. Though we talked much, neither of us can fully understand the emotions going on in our minds, what home was really like, or be able to put our memories into words or pictures. They’re abstracted, somewhere in our minds circling around. Our piece is abstract but it is a representation of this unclear-ness and constant movement and change that is nearly woven with a common thread.
Process:
Finished Piece:
Reflection:
