Dear Diary Series

Dear Diary is a community collaboarative art project which shares and celebrates the tradition of the diary, retelling diary entries in a public platform with a thread and needle. This exhibit celebrates the banal, pivotal, silly, sad and serious personal archives we keep. The series began during my residency at the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture in Dawson, Yukon Territory in October 2012. For the project I asked the public to anonymously send me diary entries on my blog, social media and by email. I have received diary entries from across North America.  The diary entries were then embroidered onto vintage and antique textiles. The hankies, table linens, and assorted textiles are found in second hand stores as well as heirloom textiles given to me by friends and family. I consider working with the gifted and found textiles as a collaboration with the original creators, a way of continuing the creative process and preserving and keeping the work alive by transforming it into a work of art.

The series is a work in progress and I will continue to solicit diary entries, from each community it is exhibited in as well as internationally.  Dear Diary has been featured in Strange Material: Storytelling through Textiles, by Leanne Prain, which explores the relationship between handmade textiles and storytelling.

Lonely
Vintage hankie, hand embroidery
2012
Dawson City, Yukon
Artist in Residence, Klondike Institute of Art & Culture (KIAC)

Above: Lonely from Dear Diary Series