This piece started out as a collage of text and images that I was collecting about women's history. In the previous year I had taken some feminist studies courses and was learning alot of new things, things that I hadn't thought about before, the ways in which certain systems are at work and constantly oppressing women without our being aware of them. Anyways, I was getting very furious that these kinds of courses were never offered at a high school level, I ( and all young women) would have entered the adult world a far different person if I had this knowledge in the beginning. I was beginning to feel very empowered withing my womanhood and just kept collecting and assembling the images and text. The text took the form of a tree, referencing the ancient tree of knowledge, only this time from a woman's perspective. The images surrounded the tree. When it was done it was a very flat image and not very interesting, and in a burst of inspiration I decided to cut it up. I just came to me, to sew it back together like the patches of a quilt. As I sat for MANY long hours, late into the night in my studio alone, I had alot of time to think about the work and what it was beginning to mean to me. At the same time I was learning about the history of quiltmaking. That the quilt was used as a form of recording and telling history. The black women slaves who sewed quilts for their owners would also be allowed the scraps from these quilts and often sewed the imagery of their families and history on them. As my hands got sorer and redder with each stitch I began to write a performance in my mind. |
