While It Sits

2023

thread, glue, rice grains, orange peels, apple seeds, dried kelp, cardboard

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The handwoven textile in While It Sits resembles a net, a porous vessel where things gather temporarily before sifting through. The objects attached to the textile play with the Japanese customs of sonaemono, which are offerings made to ancestors. These offerings reciprocate care to loved ones who have died and now look after the living from a distance. Some of the sonaemono in While It Sits are scraps, echoing the unofficial practice of eating foods once they have been offered for a time, so as not to let them waste.

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Creative Access Description

Four photos of a woven artwork hanging on a white wall. It is 25 inches wide and 60 inches tall, and made of loosely woven threads resembling a net. It is a saturated orange colour with a pinkish hue. A nail on each top corner holds the artwork’s weight, causing it to droop downward in the middle. Thread ends are tied into knots lining the top and bottom edges.

 

Attached to the threads and scattered across the artwork are various objects including folded and rolled pieces of dried kelp, uncooked rice grains, apple seeds, and the peels of two oranges that have curled while drying, resembling petaled flowers. In the bottom left quarter, a cardboard tube protrudes through the artwork, disrupting the thread tension and causing the netting to pucker. The tube faces forward, revealing the wall behind it, and forming a perch for a pile of rice grains. On the right and left edges, a trail of rice grains lines the length of the artwork.