These soft sculpture pocket fish were my first serious sewing project. It was fall 2009, shortly after my dad passed away that March. Freshly wounded from a summer spent sorting through my dad's things, I was at war with myself as an artist and at a loss for why art-making was so important to me, and what the purpose was of the accumulation of things over the course of a person's life. What was the point of making things, things that accumulate and occupy space, things that need to be managed?
To get myself back into the habit of making after the trauma of grief, I wanteda process that felt forgiving. I wasn't a textile artist and had no previous skill with needle, thread, or sewing machine. The last time I had sewn was in middle school Home Economics class. So I had no expectations of myself, as a master or expert of the material. I found fabric to be forgiving, malleable, shapeable. I could crumple it and toss it, which was different from the pristine sheets of printmaking paper I was used to working with. If I didn't like something I stitched, I could undo it and try again. Working with loud, kitschy, non-precious fabrics made the process even more forgiving.
The forgiveness of the fabric was not the same as simplicity. On the contrary, the freedom of kitschy fabric and low expectations made it easier for me to make these fish hella complicated. They have internal cavities, which can hold their plush organs or any sundry of items. They have gill pockets. They are squishy, but also heavily structured, with spiny fins and ornate tails.
I finished the most recent set of fish--the sailfish and the mahi-mahi--in 2020 at the start of quarantine. It felt good to return to this material, in which I found forgiveness amidst grief and survivor's guilt all those years ago. It felt good to have them in a window display for other people's enjoyment at a time when we couldn't connect in person. It seems these fish are still doing what I had hoped they would do for me eleven years ago. In a space of uncertainty, they are vessels of levity.
