Pressing Needs: A Case Study of Cares and Desires

SAIC Sullivan Galleries, October - December 2008

Installation for J. Morgan Puett’s collaborative project Department (Store)

"Pressing Needs" is an arrangement of garment care labels and dressmaking tools set inside a display case from the former Carson, Pirie, Scott building designed by Louis Sullivan.  Collecting numerous labels out of various articles of clothing, I stitched over words using a machine darning technique.  The fabrication process removed and re-framed language to alter meaning, resulting in a colorful accumulation of poem-like fragments from my free associations with notions of care and desire.  I am continually adding to this collection, keeping the labels stored in a scroll of muslin that lengthens as needed.