Pink in an Emergency (Funny Weather)

Very happy to be contributing again to The Laboratory Arts Collective's biannual magazine. The latest edition is themed, HUE. "Pink in an Emergency (Funny Weather)" emerged having read Oliver Laing's "Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency" only a few weeks after Covid-19 enforced the shut down on the East Coast. Laing's collection of essays are a cry to action, to hope and possibility, amidst a magnitude of global emergencies. Not only is the writing a a vital and needed call to the power of creativity during times of crises but the cover is almost a perfect sugared almond pink. On reading the book I counted 32 sentences that included the word pink. I gathered them all to create a new narrative, which pays homage to an inspiring book and to the power of pink-ness.

Parachute Shirt 1981

 "Parachute Shirt 1981" - literally.

Lotus Flower New Moon - Spider Silk Knickers

STRUMPET & PINK has collaborated with Bolt Threads on a re-working of "Willow", one of the brands most distinctive and widely disseminated pair of knickers. "Willow's Web" has been crocheted out of Bolt Thread's Microsilk™yarn, which has been developed to replicate spider silk's "remarkable properties including high tensile strength, elasticity, durability, and softness". The Mircosilk™yarn has been bioengineered and can be "produced with less environmental impact that traditional textile manufacturing, with the potential to biodegrade at the end of its useful life".

"Willow's Web" can be viewed at RISD Museum's exhibition "The Art and Design of Spider Silk" September 27, 2019 - April 19, 2020.

"Willow's Web" by STRUMPET & PINK, 2019
Image courtesy of RISD Museum

"Willow's Web" by STRUMPET & PINK, 2019. Detail with seed pearl
Image courtesy of RISD Museum

Full Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse - Stitching Alive Her Unseen Desires

For the past five days, I have been performing a stitched response to an array of 'stray' feminine garments from the RISD Museum’s Costume and Textiles Collection.

The variety of intimate garments have been 'found in the Collection' and are either too damaged, marked or simply not special enough to warrant being preserved behind glass. Yet, despite the fact that these pieces were never accessioned, neither are they of so little significance that they can be thrown away. The pieces, therefore, remain in a state of limbo, their presence and potential stifled in a box. The performance addresses this sense of invisibility and worthlessness, and through stitching these 'strays' together, the pieces are tended and framed in a new light, and the feminine 'inventory' acquires an enlivened narrative.

More details can be found here.

Happy New Year 2019

May it bloom or else be blooming marvelous...........

11/11 Manual 11

The RISD Museum's biannual magazine Manual has been published and Issue 11 revolves around the subject of Repair.

Manual 11 - Repair

I am pleased to have participated in Double Take whereby two specialists from different fields offer their thoughts and views on the same object from the RISD Museum's collection. On this occasion, Lilian Wong, who is the Chair of Interior Architecture and the Co-founder of INT/AR Journal, and myself wrote about a pair of cotton knit stockings from the early 1900's.
From my perspective, the three raspberry-pink stripes provided an enticing opener to ponder about Kate Kittredge and her carefully darned stockings.

American or English Stockings, early 1900's. Length 54cm. Cotton knit

New Moon Solar Eclipse

The Transformational Soviet Poncho is complete. Ready for the New Moon Solar Eclipse........

"Transformational Soviet Poncho" by Lisa Z. Morgan, 2018. 40 ins x 80 ins. Linen, cotton, 
calico, embroidery, zinc planted grommets