My Mother was a farm girl who used her skills as seamstress in the domestic industry during the Great Depression and war years. Her sewing machines were beautiful, strong and powerful. Using tissue paper dress patterns, she produced fashionable clothing worn to embellish female beauty in a male dominated society.

The fragility of tissue evokes male notions of delicacy while the precision and rigidity of printed lines cut, restrict and bind the human form suggesting ritual tattooing, medical incision or cuts of meat. I have repurposed my Mother’s tissue patterns and images of vintage sewing machines as elements of artistic expression evoking questions about human existence, survival, self- reflection and the forces that govern perception and experience. In doing so, I contrast the precise graphic design of tissue patterns with loosely drawn images, juxtapose old with new, and suggest alternate relationships between woman and sewing machine.