Gallery V | Embedded Clothing is a silent witness to our lives, embedded with our most personal memories and emotions. It knows our secrets, marks our passages, comforts us, protects us and often disguises us. And in our wearing, we shape it, form its character as it is washed, ironed, torn, mended, handed down and back up, seams let out or taken in until it is discarded or saved, at rest at last in a cedar chest as time dissolves the fabric and once-invisible stains bloom in the dark.
I began this series of works by partially deconstructing one of the heirloom baby dresses that my grandmother made for me. It represented a culture that was both nurturing and restricting and a time before we could see that fabric of our small Southern dynasty had begun to fray. As I tediously removed each miniature stitch of dresses that were mine or my mother’s, each seemed to ask questions: What secrets of my grandmother’s life did I unravel? What did she hide in this stitch or that one? What part of her did I release? What part of myself did I release? And what part of myself did I embed as I stitched them into art? Each of these works tells a small story in background and foreground, of truth and facade.
From Embedded, a solo show at ArtSpace, Raleigh, NC, 2011
GALLERY V
Beginning | 2010 | 20”x20” | deconstructed child’s dress made by my grandmother, hand stitched collage with layers of hand dyed transparent silk
Detail | Beginning
Graces | 2011 | 40”x24” | deconstructed heirloom baby dresses made by my grandmother incased in 2 layers of silk, hand stitched arcs, backlit
Remember Who You Are | 2011 | 16X16” | deconstructed baby cap made for my brother by grandmother, hand stitched collage with layers of hand dyed transparent silk
Self-portrait as a 4-year-old | 2011 | 36”x24”| deconstructed organdy dress made by my grandmother for my portrait to be painted — a well-mannered facade of a Southern child with the broken girl hidden in the background.
Details | Self-portrait as a 4-year-old
Entrance | 2010 | 34”x524” | deconstructed vintage adolescent’s dress, hand stitched collage
Metamorphosis | 2011 | 18x28 | deconstructed baby gown, hand stitched silk collage
Secrets | 2011 | 17”x30” | deconstructed vintage silk lingerie circa 1920 found by a friend after her mother-in-law’s death, folded and never worn.
Detail | Secrets
Revelation | 2011 | 20”x6” / hand stitched, “proper” leather glove hiding an unspeakable wound ∞
Detail | Revelation
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all images ©Carolyn Nelson and may not be used without permission of the artist