Artist Statement
The “Funeral Clothes Project” is an ongoing modular piece made from clothing previously worn to funerals. Inspired by a personal experience with loss and funeral clothing, I asked family and friends whether they had clothes that they no longer wore on account of bad associations. Slowly I began collecting clothes–sometimes decades old–that had languished unworn in the backs of closets, too distressing, dated or ill-fitting to wear, and too sentimental to just throw away. In the process of repurposing these clothes–itself somewhat emotional–I have found that bringing together these personal testaments of grief has resulted in a kind of symbolic community of the bereaved across time and space.
Opens Friday at Sweet Lorraine Gallery