pieta (reflection on keats), 2016-2018.

Hand embroidery on vinyl & found cane. Dimensions variable, embroidered cloth, 5’ x 5’.

“…I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason…”

John Keats

For two years I pieced 2” strips of vinyl tablecloth back together. Horizontal rows of stitches connected into a 5’ reconstructed cloth, but—unwilling to cease—I crossed with perpendicular rows of stitches. Yet still, I repeated another layer of horizontal stitches. This absurd quilt consumed my life, both mentally and physically, as I wrestled with what it means to be out of control…to be “capable of being in uncertainties.” The obsessive process revealed a flayed flesh of dependence. Dependence upon not knowing, and an imperfect attempt at faith in the future.

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