Original painting; custom-framed. Watercolor and ink on paper.

Total outer frame dimensions: 11.5”x14.5”

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CONCEPT:

Red thread is the most enduring and oft-employed of my “personal symbols.” In all my work, thread symbolizes resourcefulness: it can be used to mend things, put them back together, make something from nothing. The color red represents permanence: the way berries stain, the way so many reds in nature make marks that refuse to come out. Red thread is a powerful means of connection. The ability to mend, to make a sum greater than parts, to commit to permanence — not that the love will necessarily be permanent, but that it will mark you as a person forever.

I’m interested in the tension between the negative and positive connotations of being connected to other beings. Being entwined with someone can mean you are inextricably linked together in a way that suggests safety, an anchor. But being bound together can also mean the ropes are pulled too tight, that escape feels impossible, that freedoms are curtailed. Every relationship – platonic, romantic, familial--navigates these tensions.

Vessels are another recurring theme in my work. I’m drawn to the vessel as a symbol of being, as something that contains and exhibits but can also mask , can hold things not visible to the beholder until they emerge from inside. Vessels remain autonomous yet connected. To remain intertwined is a choice: the threads can be cut, but not without pain. They cannot be untangled; they must be severed, and there’s a violence and pain in that severance, though it is often necessary. And so: connected, intertwined, but each containing itself, and the option of separation latent in everything. I find remaining connected by choice the most beautiful way of being together. The option of separation, rather than lessening the depth of love, for me increases it.

As the new reality of living with Coronavirus set in, this piece took on a few new meanings for me. The vessels became less about love and partnership and more about all people with whom we have a connection, and how we put out feelers and threads to try and remain entwined with them in an isolated Covid-19 universe. When I started on this series, I saw the red threads as strong, such resilient forces of connection. But as we proceeded into month after month of social isolation, I saw those red threads— the things connecting me to friends, colleagues, loved ones— looking more and more fragile. The “Entwined” series encapsulates these themes of interconnectedness, all the ways we reach out and seek to bind ourselves to others, how we are not as autonomous as we think. But still we reach.