TMI, Your Mood Gallery, 2023

I came of age using AOL Instant Messenger, and my emotions, to this day, carry the imprint of that language. Acronyms like LOL, OMG, WTF, and TMI are deeply ingrained in my sense of self. I also grew up knitting, sewing, beading, making friendship bracelets, weaving, and dyeing, so my emotions are also deeply embedded in textile production. It is no accident that words and threads are parallel vehicles for storytelling, “spinning tales” and “embroidering details.” In moments of anguish or anxiety, I talk or I make textiles, or sometimes both at once, as women have done for thousands of years. Both activities take time and attention, drawing out ideas and processing them. 

Typing, texting, talking, stitching–they can have the effect of unraveling some tight knot in my body and arranging it into an orderly pattern. They might arrive at some finished product, some “aha!” moment, or a completed project. They can cool the heat of a painful moment. But they can just as easily go on indefinitely, keeping the pain warm at an obsessive smolder. 

TMI stands for “too much information,” and is often used in speech or text as a way to soften or bracket the sharing of something intensely personal. I have been working on TMI for more than a year. I have unraveled a few knots and tangled many even further. Each crocheted square takes about 25 minutes to make and I am still making more–the repetition is familiar and enjoyable for its own sake. I have used more than 20lbs of yarn, mostly discarded by other makers, in colors which I associate with heat or cold. Together they clash or blend or shift rapidly, forming a planar curve for the viewer to enter and become encompassed, entwined.