The Quilts are the Maps

The quilts are repurposed from a vinyl Photo wallpaper I used in exhibitions to cover as much of the spaces with images of Black womxn - I used the wallpaper as a boundary. To claim the space for Black womxn. There are 22 - aligned with the soul mission and the archetypes (african spirituality, tarot).  For me the quilt pieces act as maps based on the geography of the subject in the quilt and will have coordinates embroidered into the quilt. “These quilts were embedded with a kind of code, so that by reading the shapes and motifs sewn into the design, an enslaved person on the run could know the area’s immediate dangers or even where to head next.” - Claire Bryant Craft History. I know there is speculation about the truth of this but that makes it so rich for me in creating my own creation story.

Stained Glass Altars - The Womb

Series of 16 stained glass works. 16 is the number of divinities that establishes life on earth in Yoruba divination. The glass vessels for me connect to the womb. “It is right that woman should lead. A womb is what god made in the beginning. And in the womb was born time and all that fills up space. So says the Beautiful Spirit.” - Mother Seal via Zora Neale Hurston.

The Tapestries are Circuitry

Made by a process that has been cross culturally in the stories of creation. I’m particularly interested in the Dogon mythology: “As the threads crossed and uncrossed, the two tips of the Spirits forked tongue pushed the thread of the weft to and fro, and the web took shape from their mouth in the breadth of the ....Word...The words that the Spirit uttered filled all the interstices of the stuff: they were woven in the threads, and formed part and parcel of the cloth. They were the cloth, and the cloth was the Word.” - as recounted in 1946 by the Dogon elder, Ogotemmelias.