Trousseau

Trousseau honors the craft traditions that have come before me. It integrates and pays homage to my personal craft inheritance (traditionally referred to as ‘women’s work’) embroidery, applique, quilting, crochet, cross-stitch and lacework.

Trousseau is my ode to these craft traditions through the transformation and elevation of collected examples of these crafts – easily found as cast-offs in op shops and the back of cupboards. I have come to place a high value on waste materials and use them as a way to embody themes of environment, domestic life, feminism and social context.

The fabrics used here are exquisite examples of handwork or others machine made facsimiles. Both are signifiers of an era when the domestically handmade was valued aesthetically if not actually. Today these types of materials are united in how commonly they are discarded – each piece is embedded with latent personal, historical and environmental meanings. They are a marker for the way social values have changed and evolved.

Trousseau has been knitted together strand by strand from these materials.
Once integrated they are then steamed, brushed and frayed to transform and elevate them as a new unified work.

This work is presented on a stretcher frame like a canvas and is ready to hang directly on a wall.