“This collection of photos show the individual squares of my Old Age Security Blanket as they are ‘unbundled’ after spending months in jars, bundled with plants and found metal objects. Released from their isolation, their ‘cocoons’ are opened and revealed into the frozen white snow of winter. Photos capture this brief moment in time, the last minutes left of the closeness formed between cloth, plants and objects.”
“Each square contains 16 (saved) pennies which are stitched by hand between two layers of cloth. Details are recorded in the accompanying accounting ledger before they enter the dye process. Each square has it's very own dye adventure with plants from my garden, neighbourhood, or places I visit. In the winter I resort to using kitchen waste and any scavenged berries or leaves I may find in the snow. I also use found metal objects which add colour to the palette, a story to tell, and sometimes an imprint of it's shape remains in the cloth. The dye process is generally slow as the fabric is bundled in bottles and left to the slow dye process for several months.
Once opened and ‘unbundled’ the squares are stitched together by hand in the order of their making and recording in the ledger, and then finally added to the blanket. Colour placements are therefore random and I trust that by the end of the project what seems accidental now may have found a natural balance all it's own.”