A Community of Knots

In her 1965 essay On Weaving, the artist Anni Albers stated, “As it is possible to go from any place to any other, so also, starting from a defined and specialized field, can one arrive at a realization of ever-extending relationships. Thus tangential subjects come into view. The thoughts, however, can, I believe, be traced back to the event of a thread” (Albers XI). A thread is the beginning of coming into being. In this paper, I will discuss the lines of my work from the beginning of the program, exploring mapping to how my work as a teacher led me to textiles and ultimately to investigating and altering societal structures impacting women. I will begin by discussing the significance of textiles in society and from a personal perspective. Specifically, I discuss the use of the knot as a metaphor for community and how my use of knots reflects my experiences. By examining an early work of mine, I pinpoint the first steps in finding personal material language that ignited the desire to destabilize expectations. Seeking female artists working with similar ideas, I will show how I used their work to understand my place in issues around scale, time, and materials and differentiate myself from other artists using textiles. I will discuss how my work illustrates my impressions of the education system, teaching, and parenting. Finally, I will discuss how my new work builds on the ideas generated during the MFA program and connects to more significant issues of labor, women, and social systems