Domestic crafts were a form of expression for a gender deprived of the liberty to express themselves. They were the soft voice with which they spoke, in their domestic spaces, proclaiming identity and place. Crafts today are regarded, at least by those who do not participate in them, as outdated and benign. This regard itself confirms that the act of persisting in crafts as a method of creation is still as rebellious as when it was all that women had.
This piece is an amalgam of choices. The choice to use traditional tapestry methods. The choice to use modern acrylic wool and rigid tapestry sheets to construct a box not just of function but of curiosity. The choice to partially premeditate and partially improvise construction, responding to the media.
The choice to use blue, cool and communicative, to lend the work an air of legitimacy where it might otherwise face dismissal. The choice to work with and against the square structure with the blue patterns. The choice to make this when instructed not to by those who believed they knew better. The choice to persist when told the piece was nonsense, not serious enough, a voice to disregard.
This piece honours every voice ignored, every quiet whisper expressed in stitches of cotton and wool.