Reconstructing deconstruction : fragmentation.

…these fragments I have shored against my ruin…” T.S.Eliot in The Waste Land, 1922

Small Vessel With Bird 1, a recent very small fabric, glass bead and shell sculpture of mine is currently on exhibition at the Manzano Mountain Art Council gallery in Mountainair, New Mexico, selected to be part of the Threads exhibition running until Octoberish of this year, I think.

Most of the materials for the piece come from my vast ragbag, from old homemade clothes and fabric scraps left over from the making of the unique clothes which over the years have come to identify me and the threads that bind me to my source, my origins in geography, history and genealogy.

Making our own clothes, our threads, is what women in my family do.

Without being either traditional or a wife, I was a tradwife long before tradwife became a social media hashtag or granny hobbies a thing for “journalists” to fill space with in their pursuit of producing collections of words strung together to generate clicks to feed advertising revenue in the relentless tail wagging the doggedness of contemporary monetized to the max life.

You could say I was born to it. The whole tradwife thing, I mean. Definitely not the monetized to the max thing , though. Posh but poor way more like it.

The small vessel is constructed from the seams of old worn out dresses and blouses I once created then clothed myself in.

I have long had basketry on my Things To Do With The Rest Of My Life list.

When the call for submissions for the Threads exhibition came, it seemed like opportunity to move something from one day to today.

I researched making coiled baskets from fabric covered rope, but then as I prepared some old clothing for upcycling, it struck me that my enclosed French seams were perfect for basketry coils.

A small vessel began to take shape.

Then the flock of little birds I am working on in a parallel upcycling of old clothing project started singing: attracting my attention with their joyful noise.

The one I selected to perch on the side of the small vessel, for the exhibition was the one most finished (when is anything ever finished?)

This Little Bird of the Day is fashioned from remnants of shweshwe (for the breast and underside) and scraps cut from a dress made of wax print fabric purchased in Harare, Zimbabwe on that disastrous “don’t take an Uno to Africa” Zim, Zambia and South Africa roadtrip The Last Emperor and I undertook to kinda sorta mark his twenty first birthday.

The base for Small Vessel With Bird is another parallell project. I have been fiddling while Rome burns, stitching my way to (a measure of) tranquility, making coasters featuring the DaGama trade marks inked on the wrong side of South African shweshwe cloth, my heritage Zulu beading skills and exploring an interpretation of Japanese sashiko stitching.

As far as I can establish, the Three Leopards trade mark inked on the back of the cloth, has been retired. New shweshwe not only comes in a brilliant range of colours and new designs, but also seems to bear a Three Kittens trade mark design.

Shells, collected on Kenton-on-Sea beach last March contributed the final flourish. Fragments shored up against my ruin. ….We shall live again…

Or at least my old handmade threads will live again in this, my first (very small, very humble) exhibition piece in this particular gallery and the beginning of my addressing that “one day I want to make…” list - one of the reasons I gave up the farmers market booth.

Unfortunately the Midnight Express had an internal combustion engine hiccup necessitating two weeks in hospital at a Ford service center in a big city south of me, so I missed the exhibition opening. I really would like to see the other pieces.

Hopefully I will get to do that the last weekend in August when I return to Mountainair for the Sunflower Festival . Inshallah and if the creek don’t rise and all that.

I am currently production lining flags for bunting which will be offered at my booth where the 6th Avenue Shala Khadi Wala is one of the 50 plus juried art vendors at what promises to be a joyful summer festival.

See you there. It will be fun. Make a weekend of it. Heck make it a week. Mountainair’s tagline is “Gateway to ancient cities…” There are some amazing national historical sites to explore, as yet unsullied by trigger warnings. (Next post I will tell more, I promise).

Recommended Reading:

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, 2026. A delightful not-so-escapist piece of contemporary social commentary and satire wrapped up in the form of a novel about a social media influencer and tradwife. What is reality? What is media construct? What is a valid and meaningful thing-to-do-with-a-life?