I can be quite sweary…
I am currently stitching “Why don’t you just fuck off?” repeatedly over this knackered old bra.
My finger hovers over the delete key, because I am cautious of my audience…
As I get to know people, I get swearier, if I think they will be ok with it. I like these words, all of them. Even the REALLY bad one. I do use the full extent of my vocabulary in my songs too, should the need arise.
There are tensions and balances in my work, ambiguity, confusions… I like that too. I like it when people are drawn in by the children’s clothes, or the very nicely stitched embroidery… and the best bit is when, they have been lulled into a false sense of security, that they think they know what they are looking at, and then go “Oh!” or even “Urgh!” and take a step back again.
(Curiously, I don’t think my greatcoat has this quality… others, but not this)
The bra is stitched with angry obscenity, but in white, on white. You have to get up really close for the opportunity to be offended by it.
I think about this as I stitch. Is this part of the work and/or part of me? Is this fictitious mythical woman I stitch for the sort of woman who would say these words? Does she just think them? Are they repressed and hidden. I wonder if, in wearing this bra for a long day, whether “Why don’t you just fuck off?” would become embossed onto the skin of the wearer, to be read later by the one that is being asked to fuck off?
Is it just me being a bit scared of offending the viewer? Or is the choice I make more about how the work is literally read? I don’t want to shout it… FUCK OFF! stitched large and red would be a different message wouldn’t it? Far more violent. White on white is a wish, a mantra, a prayer… that is far more frightening I think, than a woman who isn’t scared to shout it, be direct and open. A muttering under the breath… a snide look out of the corner of the eye… Maybe one of the bras I stitch will be more blatant, brash and bold… but not this one. This one is a little bit scared of herself.
