Do Not Mutilate
Do Not Mutilate
2017, 2023
letterpress, poetry, data cards, handwoven fabric
series of 14, each 12 x 8 inches
This series combines prints on paper with handwoven fabric, completed during artist residencies at Penland School of Craft in 2017 (letterpress) and 2023 (textiles).
Do Not Mutilate 1: I am self-conscious
2017 poem, 2023 weaving
letterpress on found data card, cotton, rayon
12 x 8 inches
Do Not Mutilate 2: So much data
2017 poem, 2023 weaving
letterpress on found data card, cotton, tencel
12 x 8 inches
Letterpress Poetry
Fourteen poems were written as they were set in metal type, a process slower than handwriting or the keyboard or cognitive synapses. Without a guiding outline for the text, the resulting poems show the pace of the process: interruptions and drifting thought. Once set in metal, the rough drafts could not easily be edited and were ready to publish. I printed them on library borrower cards, whose small holes made a sieve for the language. Some letters were lost, and though printed in an edition, each card held its own incomplete version of the poem. Another reason I chose to print on punch cards was their relation to the history of weaving and information science. This is a data storage system that originated from 19th century Jacquard weaving looms and led to computer programming.
Do Not Mutilate 3: Make me a list
2017 poem, 2023 weaving
letterpress on found data card, cotton, rayon
12 x 8 inches
Do Not Mutilate 4: Gather the scraps
2017 poem, 2023 weaving
letterpress on found data card, cotton, rayon, tencel
12 x 8 inches
Do Not Mutilate 5: How do you make
2017 poem, 2023 weaving
letterpress on found data card, cotton, rayon
12 x 8 inches
Do Not Mutilate 6: From a distance of
2017 poem, 2023 weaving
letterpress on found data card, cotton, rayon, tencel
12 x 8 inches
Woven Fabric
Weaving is a recurring motif in the Do No Mutilate series, as in the contemplation of binary code (in #2: “So much data”), the engtanglement of co-sleeping (#8: “Every time you suffocate”), the longing for information to be made tactile (#9: “Define haptic”), or the open-field litany of #13 with its real and made-up words containing the prefixes ‘over’ and ‘under.’
Accompanying each data card is a collage of handwoven fabric, inspired by other subjects and ideas that occur throughout the poems. The descriptions of landscape, laughter, books, and flags appear in the cloth’s visual abstractions and text fragments. Undulating twill conveys hills, or squirrels hops, or the wind-animated stripes of a flag. Summer and Winter block structure, woven with pick-up, offers a more syncopated rhythm, like wandering footprints or the punch holes in the data cards.
The fabric compositions are stretched over frames, and the data cards secured with gold thread.