Sound Scene Installation: Fiber Scroll (1/4)
June has been a JOURNEY, you guys.
**Before you listen to this episode, get somewhere quiet and find a piece of fabric that means something to you to hold while you listen. Oh, and if you can listen with a friend, that’s even better.**
The first weekend in June we exhibited an interactive installation of Material Feels, titled Conversations with the Material World, as a part of Sound Scene, at the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C. The work features four sculptures, each accompanied by a narrated soundscape designed with the material, maker and process in mind. The piece features queer, nonbinary artists in celebration of the queer, nonbinary nature of the material world around us.
The weekend was… amazing. I’m still processing it. It was my first time showing my work. I really felt like I was holding out the tenderest parts of my soul for people to touch and listen to… it was… intense. Hundreds of people interacted meaningfully with the sculptures, and the soundscapes. It was emotional for me to watch people respond to my narration… I was amazed to see people closing their eyes and loosing themself in the material world, just as I had wished and hoped they would.
The next four episodes, we’ll be releasing the first iteration of Conversations with the Material World (I say first because there will be more versions… we’re looking to show the work at festivals, museums and interactive art spaces, and we’re evolving/changing with each iteration).
This episode features the soundscape designed for a fiber scroll by Selena Loomis. Since you can’t touch the scroll in person, please get a piece of fabric – a blanket, loved sweater, a soft scarf… anything that means something to you – and hold it while you listen. If you have a sewing kit and can get yourself a threaded needle, that’s even better. Oh, and if you can listen with someone else… I think it’s worth it to have company.
FIBER
Selena Loomis, Catherine Monahon, Elizabeth de Lise; sound, voice, found textiles, silk, linen, wool & botanical dyes
Oh, hey there!
There are messages here for you.
Pick up the scroll (no really, touch it, you are allowed!) and untie the ribbon; be careful of the needle woven into the side; that’s for later. Unroll it on the pedestal in front of you, or hold it up to the light.
As it opens, explore the fibers with your fingertips.
Close your eyes and feel how different textures light up against your skin.
Open your eyes:
See the wool fibers Diana spun together,
And sproutlings of tiny ties that make x’s, handspun alpaca yarn.
The hand-pieced quilt with squares of silk are dyed indigo from Selena’s garden.
Then, the needle felted cloud of wool
And structured lace, handmade and passed down to the next generation
And on the outside, raw silk dyed with botanicals: black walnut (another gift from the material to your left), indigo, sumac berries, marigold, pokeweed.
Steeped in plant life, and hours of afternoon light through the window,
These messages are secondhand; you are the third hand, the fourth hand, the fifth hand…
Bring your face close to look at the stitches as Selena did, each one appearing like footprints on soft ground
Wrap the scroll back up and tie the ribbon in a loose bow; keep holding that bundled fabric.
Close your eyes again,
and remember.
Max presses the tail of his stuffed animal under his nose, rubbing it gently in the fold beneath his nostrils. Not to taste or smell, but to touch. His parents bought a second stuffed animal, identical, so they could swap out and wash the other. But he always knows the difference, and calls for the original.
Is it soft?
Is it rough?
Is it loved?
They sleep at night with the soft edge of the top blanket tucked up, under their chin, against their neck and cheek. The softness feels safe and allows for sleep.
Is it soft?
Is it rough?
Is it loved?
That special article of clothing you keep close; maybe it belongs to someone else, maybe someone mended it for you.
Is it soft?
Is it rough?
Is it loved?
When you are alone, you bury your face in a wool sweater, or a leftover sweatshirt, or a transient hoodie, breathing in
… the hug from when he comes home from a long day of work, smelling like the train.
… the person you no longer see.
… the version that no longer exists.
Is it soft?
Is it rough?
Is it loved?
My mother cut away the buttons on her mother’s clothing, after she passed, in the way it was always done: to save, and use again.
Is it soft?
Is it rough?
Is it loved?
The way socks hold our feet, shirts caress our backs, pants press against bellies.
Is it soft?
Is it rough?
Is it loved?
The thread that is made and passed down; a cursive kiss, a pulling together of two things.
Is it soft?
Is it rough?
Is it loved?
The persistence and patience in the hands that clothed us, conjuring warmth.
Is it soft?
Is it rough?
Is it loved?
That shirt you borrowed with no intention of giving back: you’re playing them, embodying them for a moment.
Is it soft?
Is it rough?
Is it loved?
Sewing is full of small, repetitive actions.
The more space you take up, the better it is for your body. It’s like a dance.
And threads, like voices,
Are different textures that pull on the base fabric.
What is your voice like, stitched in?
Push through and make space.
Our hands are important.
Ancestrally, you are probably not far from fiber. Someone in your family may know how to sew. Maybe that person is you. Someone farther back likely worked in a factory, or a mill, or a field. Perhaps your family member was a worker, or manager, or, far removed but equally involved, an owner.
Perhaps they weren’t allowed work. Perhaps they were forced to work.
Fiber is a lesson in love, and pain, too. There is a dark side – the hell of cotton fields and sweatshops, the underbelly against our bellies.
Every fiber’s story is thick with labor, from personal to political.
You’ll notice a tear in the fabric on the outside of the scroll you’re holding: the material has come undone; it is damaged. There should be a threaded needle notched in nearby for safe-keeping, left by the last person:
Add your stitch to the piece.
And if you’ve never made a stitch before let this be your first.
Take the needle in one hand and with the other pinch the fabric together at the tear; press the needle through both pieces bringing it across, coming back through the other side; then weave the needle in for the next person and place the wrapped up scroll back on the pedestal.
Fiber comes from plants and animals; we use it to create a second skin that embraces us, protects us.
Eyes on stitch, mouth tight, breath slow, light changing around us, day moving. Hands pulling and pushing, arms reaching, pads of fingertips pressing, guiding; legs curled on couch or flat on floor, neck bent, muscles knit together.
The smell of the thread is sunlight, and dust, and skin.