Insecure: Comfort Quilts 2024
Representing the consequences of housing insecurity through a lens of comfort helps resolve the needs lacking in my experience.
Insecure explores the need for comfort for a child raised in ontological insecurity. By age 21 I moved over 30 times due to financial hardship. This work reflects my experience with housing insecurity as a youth through a lens of comfort. Quilts are my interpretation of comfort because blankets keep us warm, comfort is their purpose, and when wrapped inside one they hug us back. Crafting the quilts is a practice that draws me closer to the women in my family who have sewn before me, like my mother and grandmother. The quilts I’ve created are my memories of home materialized and stitched into icons of domestic stability. In my experience, a home is more easily established once you’ve moved in, meaning that home is what you carry with you. The icons on the quilts echo the precious objects I carried with me that transformed addresses into homes.
