THREADS OF CONNECTION

“Garments communicate who we are and the roles we play in life.” said Merill Comeau, a storyteller in fabric, crafting biography through garments.

The hats lined up are made up of the ones that Merill has worn over since childhood. Each is labeled with a female familial relationship she performs, experiences, or receives such as mother, mother-in-law, aunt, niece, sister, daughter, grandniece, granddaughter, etc.

“We wear so many hats as family women, and others wear those hats for us.  The multitude of positions we embrace as women and relationships we navigate with each other is symbolized in the consistency of using only hats of summer but they are varied by age, size, and character.”

“It is part of a prayer my family said every night at bedtime during my childhood.  On my fragile nightgown, ghost-like blue drawings inspired by old family photographs are stitched under patches of tea-stained cloth blurring specifics of identity. Discoloured cuffs and hem hint at a difficult slog through mud, much of the tainted gown has been torn from the bottom. Although memories climb the chemise through references to figures, the upper section remains white representing emergence from a messy past.”

“An ongoing project begun in 2014.  I am lining my deceased mother’s shirt with my hair exploring societal biases about beauty and expectations of proper female hygiene. Hair shirts have been used throughout history to be worn with discomfort to remind us of to atone. When I was a child, my mother tightly braided my perpetually messy hair into submission every morning. As an adult, she would command me…’Comb your hair and put on some lipstick so your husband will want to come home to you!’ She was implying my failure to attract, that a positive assessment of my surface qualities was essential to my retaining my husband.  My husband, who loves me without conditions, thought this was absurd.  But while my mother was alive, she continually told me she ‘saved’ my marriage from ruin by insisting I comb hair and put on lipstick.”

“The shirts of my deceased mother are deconstructed, reconstructed and embellished illustrating phrases spoken to me about how to be a ‘proper’ woman.  I reach into the past and its accompanying prejudices and strictures and contrast what I heard as a girl with the norms and expectations of today.”

The fabric is hand-painted in the colour of mourning, honours women throughout history working in the textile industry.  Additionally, this work explores our current disconnection to the manufacture of our clothing. Building this installation progressed over nine years, Merill experienced countless failures and trials of sewing skills. Historically, skill in sewing was a necessity for working women.  Learning to sew was deemed useful and productive, the creation of garments an essential task.  The anonymous nature of “women’s work” means that the objects women left behind are often what are used to tell overlooked histories.

In Merill’s art, she deconstructs clothing and reconstructs elements to create new textiles.  Using her seam ripper, she undoes another’s work.  “While on residency at the Hambidge Center for Art and Science in 2012, I deconstructed an antique silk bodice — I recognized that, as I snipped, I destroyed the maker’s meticulous hand stitches.  Moved by the memory inherent in the bodice (of the maker and the owner – not necessarily the same person)”

“The needle served as the tool for crafting identity in a way that the pen could not.”

Growing up hearing the adage  “waste not, want not.”. Merill’s parents survived the Great Depression and salvaging materials for reuse was the norm in her family home.  She learned to alter hand-me-downs to create “new.” clothes. During her teens and early adulthood, she learned to recycle glass and plastic and compost table scraps as an act of supporting a healthy environment.  “And today, worldwide inequitable use of resources and globalization are concerns.” she lamented. “I had a community of friends with children growing out of their outfits and elderly relatives dying leaving behind closets full of clothing – ample sources for artmaking. With their frayed edges from wear and stains from meals shared, these sources carry memory of lives lived. Fabric patterns and garment designs reflect time periods, taste, affluence, function, fashion, or social status.”

Merill with an undergraduate degree in social theory and political economy studied a wide range of subjects such as psychology, sociology, women’s history, and leftist economics.  She learned to observe, analyze, understand, and posit theories about human behaviour. As a Unitarian Universalist, she believes in the inherent worth and dignity of all people.  She employs a series of exercises she developed to foster reflection and sharing and to guide people to express themselves and to combine diverse individual expressions in ways that reinforce our perception of commonalities and feelings of togetherness.

She teaches workshops and works with groups of children, adults, mixed ages and people of different religions, backgrounds, and desires in which they investigate individual differences and similarities. For example, she facilitates the emergence of young artistic voices as a teaching artist for the Department of Youth Services working with youth-serving sentences in the Massachusetts court system residing in secure treatment centres. “My practice is trauma-informed and uses visual expression to tell stories, transmit knowledge, and define values.  This work and my educational background directly contribute to the conceptual underpinnings of my work.” Unfortunately, as for the activity, Threads of Connection, closed 6 weeks into its run.  It is still at the museum, inaccessible today – almost a year later!  Its future is uncertain.

“Stitching is construction and embellishment, craft and art.  I love working with the mechanical tool of a sewing machine, and the focus and quietude required for hand stitching.  As I work, I feel connected to a very long history and wide breadth of cultures creating and manipulating fibres to create useful items and to express beauty.” Merill Comeau believes that we all have the capacity to communicate visually and that visual expression allows us to say things we cannot express in words.

It’s amazing to find someone I admire in another corner of the world, who is also doing Tales of Time in Textile, and believe that clothes can bring back time, experience and heal our souls.