Advanced Fiber - Process

I'm Fine

2019

Project Statement

I’m Fine is a part of a concentration centered around repair of broken objects. It is an investigation of the process of the breaking and the repairing of a domestic object. It serves as a metaphor for a negative experience which results in the need for emotional healing. The piece begins with a traditional armchair. This is a very personal object, which only serves to seat one person. It has a relationship and strong connection with the body. It is an object used by people that provides singular comfort. In this way it reflects a private individual. The breaking or violent ripping of the chair’s fabric represents difficult, hurtful, or negative situations or experiences. Each tear, rip, or hole in the upholstery signifies an individual event that caused pain or trauma. The physical act of mending the chair is reflective of the emotional healing that one undergoes after such an experience. It is often necessary to recover from emotional trauma through self-repair, recovery or rebuilding. Often you must find a way to put yourself back together again. This is what I have done with the chair through a historic process called darning. Through this process thread is woven across the holes, and stitched on both ends. Thus, the repaired area becomes its own fabric or material, but still connected to the original upholstery; signifying the ways in which one changes or grows after and from a difficult situation. The large array of colors in the repaired areas show all of the various aspects that are a part of emotional healing. Their sharp contrast against the color and pattern of the original fabric again alludes to the idea of change, especially positive development, which is represented in the bright and vivid multitude of hues. The moments of pattern within the woven areas signify the challenges and predictability one often faces when undergoing emotional healing, as well as the ways that one might change very significantly due difficult events.The chair exists as the center of the piece in its current state just as a person only exists in the present in their changed state. Past experiences only exist as memories, like those that we photograph as a moment in time and put in a frame to remember. These are usually happy memories, but what is also often memorable are the very bad, low points in life and how they have shaped who you are today; those that remain hidden under the pretty patches. This is demonstrated through the accompanying framed photographs that display the entire process of the chair going from broken to repaired. The photos also serve to reveal what is usually a deeply intimate or private process, as a way to uncover the entire experience of emotional healing and what someone usually has to go through alone.

Ideas and Sketches

Images 1-5: Sketches of the planned progression of my project. This is an idea of how I would document the process from breaking to mending the chair. I am thinking of displaying these photographs in frames with the finished chair

Whole, completely intact chair

Process of me ripping and breaking the fabric of the chair

Ripped, broken chair

Process of me mending the chair

Repaired, mended chair

Some color swathes, testing what will look best with the plaid blue and white with yellow flowers pattern on the chair

Research and Reading

Some examples of Mark Newport's work through his two series, "Mending" and "Repairing"; he uses traditional mending techniques (darning) with patterns as well as abstract hand stitching in many of his pieces

Examples of some traditional darning samplers from around the 1800s that were common for European school girls to do as part of their needlework lessons

Essay "Darning: A Visible Thread by Liz Williamson" (see image description for link to the full essay), great examination of darning and its development throughout history

Essay "A Stitch in Time: Changing Cultural Constructions of Craft and Mending" by Anna König; lots of information on the history, development and implications behind mending

Essay "A culture of visible mending: Improvisation, or bodging the job?" by Neil Maycroft; very interesting exploration and comparisons of different types of mending and their meanings or connotations

Techniques and Sampling

Explanation and images of how to darn from the Encyclopedia of Needlework by Thérèse de Dillmont

Sample of darning on one of the covers of one of the arms of the chair where I was able to practice with the actual material of the chair. It worked pretty well except for an issue on the right side where the warp pulled the two sides of the whole together, creating a strange fold. I will have to watch out for this when darning on the chair.

Figuring out how to plan patterns for patterned darns; sketching out some shaft weaving templates to create a pattern

My darning sampler that I worked on for a while to figure out what type or how many threads to use and tested/practice some techniques with pattern and ideas with color. The first one on the top left was very messy and not tight; I used three embroidery threads together which was much too thick. The second one from the top left was neater with the stitching and weaving but the weave was still very loose with many visible holes. In the third one from the top left, I used one embroider thread which worked very well, and ending up being the thread I went with for the project. In the one on the very top right, I tried to used sewing machine thread as well as a pattern which did not turn out too well; the sewing thread was too thin and flimsy and I had so many warps close together that it was too difficult to try to try to keep track and count them while doing the pattern. The sample square on the bottom left was very successful; I was able to get a clear pattern finally using the embroidery thread and with some better planning. The one on the bottom right is the beginning of a darning sample where I tried to use some bright colors that I wanted to use on the chair, I also attempted to make some abstract forms or shapes using patterning techniques, but it did not work very well.