12/14/12 through 1/17/13

Weaving Language is an installation featuring frame loom weavings of various sizes with corresponding laser cut poems affixed to the walls. The work invites insight into the distinct natures of weaving and poetry while offering new trajectories through the tension that emerges between them. This amalgamation pushes the visual and material possibilities of language and utilizes the metaphor of weaving to create new meaning. The objective of my work is to develop a methodology for expressing this tension, thus creating a new lens to view the two art forms in relation to each other. An accompanying dictionary has been published in conjunction with Weaving Language that has served as a foundation for this work. Recognizing the structural similarities between writing and weaving, it translates from the visual to the textual by utilizing symbolism and grammatical rules. Verbs are likened to woven structure, nouns and adjectives to color, prepositions to interlocking threads and other qualities of language into respective aspects of textiles. Many choices are left open, providing opportunity to strengthen the quality of both the writing and weaving while investigating their relationship. The dictionary functions as a prompt and translated text may result in a multitude of variations. The use of these structural principles becomes a mutually informing process for both crafts, inviting new possibilities for poems based on textiles and the inverse. Space is created for both to exist separately and in relation to each other, multiplying the ways in which the work performs for the reader/viewer to experience.