Sleep III (Progress)

Similar to Sleep II, Sleep III is composed of black, white and natural-dyed cotton sheets, used polyester night garments and red and white cotton thread. But instead of creating independent structures and merging them together as a whole, I've been constructing III piece by piece, cutting, positioning, pinning and then sewing a single portion at a time. It's slower, but maintains a greater awareness for every section's placement in relation to the rest of the work.

OK. Story: I recently purchased a new machine and after a few uses, it began sewing in reverse. Instead of forming a selected stitch evenly on the obverse textile surface, the anchoring stitches would sometimes manifest on the upper side instead. Confused but interested, I decided to plot in reverse too, planning and pinning for what irregularities I could meet and studying the eventuation's I couldn't - all the time weighing the fact that these underside stitches usually go unseen, traditionally relegated to the back of a textile work. Shaped by a degree of chance and technological resilience, it was fortunate my machined stitches linked coherently at all.

After a few days of experimentation I did figure out the cause. Following loading, I had repeatedly missed threading the bobbin hook properly. After a rethread, the deviation was fixed. In the wake of my confused efforts lay sprawling tendrils pointing to a mechanized action undermined by my inept hand. But while I did consider uprooting the joins and starting again, I appreciated the evidence of a more personal, experiential mark making process. Dispersed within the movements of the machine, my own inexpert interventions coalesce with the roughly cut edges of cotton and polyester - the resulting marks manifesting as a response to the amalgam of process and (in)experience.

As I work, the accumulating textiles increasingly feel and move in the lumbering manor of sleep, a heavy yet malleable representation of time, action, mark making, process, physicality and materiality.

Untitled (Sleep II)

Shaped, wrinkled, stretched and worn by the weight of our innate actions in slumber, there is a discernibly physical exchange between materiality and rest. But for those that cannot attain rest due to chronic illness and disability, sheets and night-clothing can also represent a dichotomy of comfort, expectation and hope undermined by ceaselessly unrestful sleep.

Cut, rearranged and reassembled, Untitled (Sleep II) is a study of the materials we surround our sleeping selves with. The violent separation and reconciliation of slept-in bedding explores the quality of the fibres that harbour the needs and desires contradicted by chronic illness and disability.

Like sheets, sleep-garments can also be associated with rituals anticipating a restful sleep. Textured with silvery ovate patterning and lace edgings, the inclusion of a severed, sweat-stained polyester negligée imbued with the expectations and experiences of its wearers points to a history of evolving technology, trade and the perceived conventions of femininity and rest.

Untitled (Sleep)

Black sheets with white thread joining severed and subsequently redistributed cotton panels. Traditionally, beds sheets are understood to be white and made of cotton, linen or silk, though modern manufacturing now enables a much wider variety of colours and materials to be produced.

I made and loosely mended small holes in the dark material to allow light to well in particular areas more easily when held up to the light. The black weave contrasts with the white thread to form a distinct record of the testing and mapping of sleep-worn materials.