Greatest Hits: Vol. 1 & 2
2022
Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 & 2, 2022
Phototex vinyl decals with color etchings on paper
My recent archival research observes domesticity, craft, and reparative reading. Greatest Hits: Vol 1 & 2, mines the Gay & Lesbian Archive of Mid America’s Spirit of Hope two-volume scrapbook to summarize glimpses of queer life alongside seemingly banal beauty. The books are a collection of any Kansas City LGBT-related newspaper headline collected by Phyllis Shafer between the 1930s to the 1980s, clipped and pasted onto pages of wallpaper samples. Looking past the troubling content of the headlines, I fixate on moments where she interjects herself through personal notations and material organization. Phyllis’s examples of matriarchal labor and care become symbols of liberatory practice. Her tactics, such as weaving and storytelling, gesture toward queer futurity.
Inspired by Phyllis’ urgent and spontaneous acts, Greatest Hits: Vol. 1 & 2 presents digitally re-stitched wallpaper patterns and arrangements alongside other textual artifacts to build cross-generational connections of love, loss, and hope. Alongside these works are text and pattern-based images as intaglio and digital prints – what I refer to as proposals or samples. I install them modularly, providing moments of unexpected discovery mirroring the feeling of discovery within the archives. With my installation, I ask the viewer to consider what they desire to learn and uncover. The project is about making space for reflection and emotional connection across textures.
The installation was part of The Law for Falling Bodies: A Queer Print-Media Exhibition at Charlotte Street Foundation.
