I have recently been thinking about playing on words, visual puns, and just being clever in general through skillful appropriation. This is in relation to textile works, and my creation of them. I am tentatively working towards something, but let's see where this goes.
A mighty woman with a hooked needle, whose thread
Is imprisoned patience, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her left hand
Glows world-wide skills; her blue eyes command
The air-bridged walls that her living room frames.
"Keep mass-produced articles, your storied consumerism!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your fibres, your threads,
Your huddled linens yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming closet.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my scissors beside the golden door!"
Adapted from 'The New Colussus' 1883, by Emma Lazarus
No artist is an island, entire of itself; every one is a piece of The Scene, a part of the main, if a part be washed away by the sea, it is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a house of thy friends or thy own were; any artist's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Making; and therefore never send to know for whom is about to make it big; they make it big for thee.
Adapted from John Donne, Meditation XVII
English clergyman & poet (1572 - 1631)
The path of the craftsmanwoman is beset on all sides by the size inequities of secondhand fabrics and the tyranny of Lindcraft. Blessed is she, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the rags through the valley of darkness, for she is truly her house's keeper and the finder of lost opportunities.
And I will strike down upon thee with great veloutine* and furious angora those who would attempt to pervert and disrupt their artworks. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my velour upon thee.
*velvety corded wool
adapted from the 'Ezekial 25:17' spiel by Samuel L Jackson, Pulp Fiction 1994.
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