Art Armor is a series of handmade, one-of-a-kind art garments made to measure from 100% reclaimed materials for fat, disabled, and trans community members. A caretaker model allows for art object stewardship without ownership or financial obligation.
Images depict Zach (they/them), a tall fat person with thin purple hair, wearing an abstract, hand painted, pink and colorful, quilt coat and makeup mirroring the petal patterns on the garment.
As an Autistic person with alexithymia (emotion blindness) I wanted an alternative way to model and study feelings. Traditional tools like the emotion wheel, that encase lived experience in two dimensional planes and linguistic cul de sacs, do not map to my neurodivergent experience. But more than just creating a way for me to frame and communicate my experience of emotions this project also gives me a vehicle for investigating how others experience emotions.
For years I was tricked into the idea that real art is in art museums, real artists were the ones with galleries, selling big. Sometimes I still fall back into that mindset. But that hierarchy is yet another symptom of white supremacy, of patriarchy, of classism. Art Museum from Bed is a new/old way of exhibiting work and I believe it is vital not just to the future of my personal practice but also how to think about art objects' role in society.
They function as histories. Made in my home, hosted in yours, made by my hands, held in yours. They function as vessels. Made from the tailpipe of abundance, made from wasted time. They function as bodies. Made from gut punch and wet eyes, made from loud brain and heat.
This project is in process.
CoSAVir-23 (pronounced "co-severe-23"), is a collaborative simulation viral pandemic. It goes like this: evil genius M Eifler has cooked up a new superbug in their basement lab in San Francisco. CoSAVir-23 was synthesized from textile scraps and hand-me-down embroidery thread. Once the first strain was enervated it quickly began to multiply and mutate. Soon it will spread to the home of people disabled by Long Covid where it will further spread in sticker, temporary tattoo and selfies. This distributed exhibition will be centered around processing the trauma of Covid, communal repair, and centering disabled stories.
to be continued…
This quilt, now in the Hart Collection, is constructed of 24 unique hand woven panels. Each panel was made on a small lap loom over the course of a year. The teal hand binding which joins the panels into the quilts top was inspired by Guatemalan garment techniques.
Bed Art was originally conceived in 2017 as a series of pillows to surround the artist during their frequent neurological attacks. The project aimed to think of their bedroom as part art studio and part art gallery. This thread has also expanded into other work.
Twisted is a series of color scans depicting extreme close ups of twisted plastic bags. The images were an experiment in mapping the tension of organismhood and the relationship between the embodied experience and the image technologies we use to scan, document, and diagnose those experiences.
Skins are a series of 3D paper piecing textiles which attempt to model the curvatures of skin around the curves of a body. Skin is the organ that protects and contains the body, hides its workings and maladies, and is interpreted and assigned meaning by others.
The Migraine Models are 3D models of the unusual pain sensations associated with chronic migraine attacks. Living through a major health crisis in which doctors did little to explain or alleviate the chronic disabling migraine attacks I turned to these models to externalize and thus study the experiences myself. These pieces, made from 2007-2009, transitioned my art practice from hobbyist to professional.
