why sewing?
Day three of being home with a sick toddler- I’ve read a million little books and watched about every cute kids movie under the sun- including The Wizard of Oz, which I am watching right now while typing this blog post.
One the questions I remember most about interacting with graduate students while working towards my degree was “why painting/video/drawing/sculpture(etc…)?” With an enormous range of materials at our fingertips- how does the medium we choose serve the work we are making? While sewing for me was a natural progression from craft into art with a new baby, the longer I work in this medium, the more I ponder this question. I have been jotting down little notes as I’ve been thinking and here is what I have thought so far that feels “right” about working in the way I have been:
“Sewing feels like an integral part of my work- part of it is the “feel” of the thread, the texture it brings to a line and how the paper changes as I sew into it. But is is also about the concept of sewing. Sewing gives me the language to connect with, embrace & re-verbalize domesticity in a non-satirical way. It is intimately about the role that I’m currently immersed in at this point in my life. It is a way to connect with the women in my family history… & billions of women over the course of human history”.
That’s it in a nutshell. Though I think this will be a three part series briefly elaborating on each aspect of the above statement- When I’m not multitasking with a sick little. (I’ll be completely honest- after 2 weeks of teething hell & now three homebound days of whiney/clingy sick toddler while watching mostly Disney/Pixar movies… I kind of want to stab my eyeballs. Not the best mental state for long posts. :))
Jayne Peña Art 
Re Sewing, most Internet search results offer info on fashion and why sewing has been necessary as part of a household reality, meaning sewing filled a need that most homes had. Not too many (I found none) where thread was used in abstract fine art, the way you do. One thing I find interesting about artists who push the limits of how things are typically used (e.g. A vocoder like Tom Fec, thread like you, a guitar like Fripp, synthesis like Trent Reznor, geometry like Picasso, and the unique use of materials and sounds in general…) opens up a vast new territory for pioneering. Committing oneself to mastering the limits is IMO a feature of a true artist.