Tending the Cycles

These embroideries are an exploration of tending the cycles in our lives. Through the lens of the fiber/textile process of embroidery, Tending the Cycles utilizes the historic trademark of the embroidered craft, often associated solely with female-bodied individuals, and through which a secret language for cultivating connection was founded. It begs the question – is it only female-bodied individuals who can keep the cycles? What does it mean when someone outside of the binary tends to, keeps, and maintains the cycles inherently built into the rhythms of the natural world?

This fibers and textiles work also explores and expands the act of creation as meditation, into pieces that speak to the cycles of the natural world and our lives, and that which has the potential to nourish, create, and grow. Visually the elements of silk, corn, seeds and cotton come together through the use of embroidery techniques that shift and alter the surface of the cloth. The inclusion of the corn in this piece speaks to the teachings of the corn mother – our relationship to the earth, our ability to nurture and sustain ourselves and those around us, and abundance.

There is both a micro and a macro experience, as one looks at the work finding small worlds within worlds of texture, color, and process, while also being able to step further away and experience a mandala effect that reflects cycles of the natural world. This work asks us to consider how we tend the cycles in our lives, and how we may lean into the range of identities and energies found within our lived lives to create a more balanced way of being and engaging. The meditative act of creating each of these embroideries serves as a prayer for all individuals of all gender identities to feel connection and freedom within the cycles of the natural world around us and within us, serving as a rooting and a home.

silk/cotton/corn/metal/wooden embroidery hoops