Something Borrowed

Ondule Reed and Cotton. 2019.

Something Borrowed is a piece I hold very close to my heart. In 2019, I was finishing my junior year of college and was deciding if weaving was something that I wanted to pursue full time or not. I was very confused, but I knew one thing, that it was in my blood.

That summer I made the decision to attend Arrowmont school of crafts and Penland School of Craft. I was going to dive in headfirst and either sink or swim. I attended my Arrowmont workshop, and a little more than a month later I found myself in the mountains of North Carolina learning my craft in a place that would come to mean so much to me.

My father’s side of the family were from Spruce Pine, which is the next town over from Penland, and when I was growing up I never really thought about the area or had a major connection to it. After my 2nd day there, my father started telling me that he knew which rock I was swimming at and my granddaddy knew the area like the back of his hand and had met my Nano there as well.

When I realized all this, I was taken back.  My love for fiber arts had come out of nowhere my senior year of high school. My Nano was what I would consider a master quilter, my granddaddy knew his way around a sewing machine and would often help Nano out with her projects, both of my aunts knit, quilted and made jewelry my entire life, and my own father was practicing woodworking right in our garage in the home I grew up in. Craft was in my blood and when I got to Penland I finally felt that for the first time.

Unfortunately, my Nano, Louise Mace Burleson, passed away before I found my love for fiber arts and while I was at Penland I realized that my passion was something I had borrowed from her and that I never had a chance to give back. Something Borrowed was not only for my grandmother, but additionally for three of my other friends who passed away at a young age who I have always felt had given me something that I didn’t have a chance to give back.

 The gold stripe is for my Nano. She always had a glow about her that made my color choices feel fitting to this piece. Inlayed into the tapestry are lose threads that I encouraged the audience to pull out to take a piece of something home to remember how my work made them feel and the stage of life they were in at the time of viewing. Personally, Something Borrowed was a study in intention, process, and vulnerability to an unknown viewer and I loved every second of it.

Something Borrowed was shown at Artspace in Raleigh, North Carolina for the Fine Contemporary Craft exhibition in December 2019 Juried by Mia Hall.