Virtual Exhibition, "Messages In Threads and Wings"
Through walking outdoors daily, over the years, I have found many butterflies whose life cycles have been completed. The Hackberry Emperor and Pipevine Swallowtail Butterflies are those that I find most often. I also collect vintage photographs of anonymous people from long ago, found in antique stores and the flea market near my home. Incorporating the butterflies and photographs together in this book made from silk organza fabric was a meditation on impermanence, and an imagining of wordless messages from unknown ancestors. I scanned the old photographs, and printed them on silk, then assembled the fabric pages and pockets of the book on the sewing machine. The covers were slowly stitched by hand. The time invested in composing the details of the pages allowed me to reflect on the images, forming connections among the various parts that I chose to bring together. Within it’s transparent pockets and envelopes, the book carries the butterflies and photographic images as enduring symbols of transformation, rebirth, and renewal.