The Sacrifice Of Gaza Tapestry

The Sacrifice Of Gaza Tapestry, 2020, hand-stitched cotton thread on dishtowel, 15.5'' x 25''

                                             

The Sacrifice Of Gaza Tapestry is stitched in its entirety in my mosaic style, and each medium-sized square shape has an average of twelve stitches. My three-dimensional mosaic piece The Sacrifice of Gaza (2009), is the direct progenitor of this tapestry. With an obvious reference to War Rugs, the background portrays fighter jets, bombs, surveillance cameras, guns, bullets, and flash grenades. The 'Sacrifice' of the title refers to a world that has turned its back on Gaza, and specifically to Western complicity. In that way, the bombs and the other machines of war represent me, dropped in my name while the mainstream media, by its omission, tells me it doesn’t matter. The world’s power system remains silent and complicit while Israel bombs Gaza anytime it feels like it, including in the summer of 2020, with constant bombardment during a world pandemic. I think of 2014 when the explosive power that Israel fired on Gaza by land, sea, and air far surpassed one of the atomic bombs the United States dropped on Japan in August 1945. Over 550 children were killed during that summer of massacre. 

And there's the Great March of Return, which began on March 30, 2018. The demands were simple: An end to the now 12-year siege on Gaza, and the ability for refugees, which make up more than 70% of Gaza’s population, to be allowed to return to their homes. Over the course of one year, scores of Gazans, mostly young men, were shot and killed, or severely injured, by Israeli snipers stationed along Gaza’s eastern border with Israel. On just one day, May 14, 2018, more than 1,300 protesters were shot by the Israeli army. Sixty people were killed. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza has placed the death toll as of March 29, 2019 at 266, including 50 children, three medics, and two journalists. Doctors Without Borders called it “unacceptable and inhuman” violence by the Israeli army against Palestinian protesters. This is what United Nations Special Rapporteur Michael Link wrote about Gaza: “There is no comparable situation in the world...where a substantial population has endured such a permanent lockdown, largely unable to travel or trade, and controlled by an occupying power in breach of its solemn international human rights and humanitarian obligations.”

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/04/sacrificing-gaza-the-great-march-of-zionist-hypocrisy/

 

The Vanishing Kingdom

"The Vanishing Kingdom"  15" x 24"  2018

                       

“It is estimated that one-third of all reef-building corals, a third of all freshwater mollusks, a third of sharks and rays, a quarter of all mammals, a fifth of all reptiles, and a sixth of all birds are headed toward oblivion.” -  Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History



This map is about the human-caused sixth extinction that is happening right now on the planet. I included animals that are already extinct and those that are threatened. I created it in its entirety in what I’m calling the ‘mosaic style’ by stitching squares, rectangles, and triangles that approximate the shapes of mosaic tiles. I envisioned this piece as a future relic portraying some of the animals that used to live on the planet.

I titled it the Vanishing Kingdom because visually it reminded me of a painting I knew from my childhood called the Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks. The placement of the four sea stars on the sides is a nod to the formal symmetry of ancient mosaics, and the letters N S E W on the lower left to indicate direction are surrounding a thermometer that represents the heating planet.

I fashioned the design in stages, using the iron transfer method for the general outline of the continents, then drawing all of the figures directly onto the fabric with a disappearing ink pen, and filling in the land and water around them. It was difficult to choose which animals to include because I had to consider the aesthetics of the overall composition; I began with five and then made decisions about which ones to add from a relatively small list. I based my choices on species diversity and endangered status as well as on color, form and the animal’s geographic location on the map.
   
Out of all of the animals that I chose for this piece I’ve only seen dragonflies and sea stars in their natural environment, so some, like the rhinoceros, have assumed an almost mythological status for me. The unfathomable loss of this extinction event begs the question: how has the majority of the human species become so disconnected from the natural world? The ecologist Paul Ehrlich states that “in pushing other species to extinction, humanity is busy sawing off the limb on which it perches”.

The thirty-four animals in The Vanishing Kingdom, listed in alphabetical order:

Adelie Penguin, Barbour’s Seahorse, Black Footed Ferret, Black Rhinoceros, Blue Racer Snake, Dragonfly, Dall’s Porpoise, Elkhorn Coral, Euphrates Jerboa, Fin Whale, Giant Armadillo, Glaucous Macaw, Great Auk, Gunlack’s Hawk, Hammerhead Shark, Kawekaweau Gecko, Krill, Laysan Duck, Leatherback Turtle, Malaysian Snail, Monk Seal, Narwhal, Numbat, Panamanian Golden Frog, Pangolin, Polar Bear, Pyrenean Ibex, Quagga, Red Breasted Goose, Sea Star, Siberian Crane, South China Tiger, Tecopa Pupfish, Walrus


Here’s a link to The National Geographic’s Photo Ark website to see some of the astonishing and immeasurable beauty of the biodiversity on the planet, and to connect with the #SaveTogether campaign:
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/photo-ark/

Mela Insana

"Mela Insana" 2016

A mosaic is a conversation between what is broken. — Terry Tempest Williams

With the exception of the tornado and a few line work details, I created this piece in its entirety by stitching small squares, and variations of the square, to evoke mosaic tile art. I consider "Mela Insana" to be a natural evolution of my some of my earlier thread pieces that utilize the square as a design element as well as my glass tile mosaic sculptures. 

I originally titled this piece "Aubergine" in reference to the dark color of the tornado and in the figure's dress, but because this piece is based on Raphael's painting "Elisabetta Gonzaga", 1504-06, I thought the Italian word for eggplant would be more appropriate. I discovered the name "Mela Insana", ("bad apple") which was folk-etymologized* from the Italian melanzana. I liked this play on the word and how it relates to the visual metaphor of the tornado. As an aside, Raphael also designed mosaics, most notably his ‘Creation of the World' in the dome of the Chigi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, executed around 1516.

The landscape on the left side represents the past and its relatively untouched natural world. The right side represents an unknown future, with a tornado that symbolizes constricted energy containing the potential for both great destruction and expansive awareness. 

* http://languagehat.com/the-multifarious-aubergine/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_of_the_World_(Raphael)

Woman with Scarab / Grace

"Woman with Scarab" 2016

"Grace" 2016

I have immortal longings in me.  —Shakespeare

“Woman With Scarab” and “Grace” were each hand stitched on a hoop frame. Because they are a smaller size than my usual work, I brought these pieces with me to work on when I traveled. With both of them, I’m interested in playing with contrasting and harmonizing patterns and colors and I chose the images and designs more for visual reasons than for any particular symbolic meaning. Although the Egyptian scarab and the Islamic motifs evoke distinct cultures, here they represent “Culture” in a general way, just as the portraits, taken out of context, no longer represent a specific person. 

The figure in “Woman With Scarab” references the painting “Portrait of a Young Woman” by Antonio Pollaiolo, 1475. She is stitched with small squares that mimic mosaic tiles and is juxtaposed on top of a geometric pattern. I created the design of the dress using an Islamic floral pattern and added a large scarab to her hair. 

The figure in “Grace” comes from a photograph of an unnamed woman in the book “Portraits of the Insane, the Case of Dr. Diamond”, who I used as my model. I find that there is an incongruent and transcendent joy and grace that emanates from her, and I wanted to capture some of it in my stitching. I worked on this piece when I visited my dying mother, and that changed the way that I came to interpret its meaning. The background is an imperfectly copied Islamic geometric design that I think perfectly symbolizes the pulsing energy of the universe. I added the chicken because I liked the way it related to the pattern of the dress, but I later thought: the chicken is going home to roost.

Pull-Toys

Giraffe Pull-Toy

Pink Dog Pull Toy

These two pieces are in the "pull-toy" style, with wheels on the base, which are decorative rather than functional. My first one was called "Camel Pull-Toy", and I made it in response to U.S. imperialism - the idea that America can drag other cultures- in that case Iraq and Afghanistan- around like toys. These pieces don't have political content, but visually I like the bases. These bases were constructed by Robert Rowland using found materials. They are also examples of using paper (Giraffe) and hand-stitched thread on paper (Pink Dog) instead of fabric. Thread on paper is now my main medium, in two dimensions.

Mosaic Work

The Sacrifice of Gaza, 2010, hand cut glass, paper pulp, wood, 20"x10"x26"

I had started this piece in Taos, and when I started working on it again in Portland it was just an unfinished paper pulp deer. Previously I'd place different objects on its back, then I'd change my mind and saw them off again. It reminds me of how in flux I was at the time with my work, how dissatisfied I was and how much I would work to try to make it right, including making big structural changes.

By the time I began creating it as a mosaic piece, I had learned a lot of the technique through trial, error, and finally a class that I took at PNCA (and where I made Glass Giraffe). I found a separate space from my apartment that I rented temporarily and worked on it diligently for six months. It was incredibly precise and focused work, hand cutting small tiles to specific angles and placing Tham very close together, but I had a natural feel for it and the process was familiar and enjoyable to me.
  
I started working on it in 2008 and I planned to just make a straightforward mosaic piece. I was well into the design when Israel began operation 'Cast Lead', its three-week bombing campaign of Gaza. I had gradually been learning about Israel's settler colonial project outside of the mainstream media's propaganda, and Palestine had captured my imagination and my heart. I decided to make the piece about Gaza in reaction to the bombardment and ongoing siege. It was easy in terms of the image itself: the deer as a sacrificial creature and the common geometric design that I'd begun is found in Islamic art. Ancient and stunning mosaics have a large presence in Palestine and Gaza as well. I added the Arabic word for Gaza on the deer's head and a rocket image on its back. 


In 2008 the US gave Israel 8.5 million in tax dollars a day. Now it's closer to 11 million. As Israel, directly supported by US tax dollars, continues its illegal and inhuman siege, including bombardments, of Gaza, The Sacrifice of Gaza remains even more relevant today.

The Sacrifice of Gaza, detail

Glass Giraffe
hand cut fused glass, cast glass, paper pulp
18" x 3" x 11"
2008

I made Glass Giraffe in a class that I took at Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) in 2008 when I lived in Portland. I wanted to learn some techniques for making glass tile mosaics and the class also covered intro to kiln glass and casting. I made the paper pulp body, then applied and grouted the fused glass tiles that I made using a kiln. The head and legs are cast glass, which is a very challenging process because it involves precise calculations and it was ambitious for my first time trying it even though I didn't know it before I started! 

This piece fits in very well with the themes of this show - giraffes are endangered species, and I like the material and title, 'glass' that adds to the idea of fragility. It's also a transition piece that was the result of searching for new ways to work and materials to work with. I remember that making it was a joy, and that I was very motivated and inspired.

Derceto
paper pulp, hand-cut glass, wood
13" x 3" x 2"
2008

Pug
paper pulp, hand cut glass
8" x 4" x 13"
2008

Nemesis
paper pulp, hand cut glass, wood
17" x 6" x 4"
2008