kintsugi: red thread

Art Quilt Network, Columbus, OH | April 2019

As a woman in a consumer society I have been lured by the desire to own certain commodities, as a printmaker I am aware of the common ancestry between multiplicity and mass production and as an artist I am interested in the question of how we bestow value onto objects and actions. Not just consumer value but other types of capital such as historical and cultural. What happens to objects that were valued yesterday and not so today? Has the value of the labor, time, effort, materials and resources used in the production of such object been forgotten?

Kintsugi: a read thread is a body of work which begins with torn garments mended by embroidery, paper, latex and salt crystals. Cultural and historical capital is part of the criteria used in selecting the mending materials. Through the use of these materials the object itself is now altered–the mending has become part of the piece–the inherent value(s) and language of the mend fused onto the object. The use of these nontraditional materials affect its value, alter its history, change the piece visually and haptically.

When something breaks or tears what do YOU do?