Mapping the migration of textiles, sewing tools, and notions bequeathed from sewer to sewer, illustrates how each newly built garment is both related and situational. By emphasizing the context surrounding the creation of the coat, the skirt, shirt, or pants, I am exploring how a new garment becomes the repository holding collective past memories while simultaneously creating individual future memories.
Biographic Mapping of Material Culture. 2019. Jana Jarosz. Textiles, photographs, text. Digital file: jpeg, 12 x 18 inches, 1.8mb.
By designing and building garments constructed from a combination of inherited and found materials, I am exploring the overlapping relationships between the lingering affect of memory and the biographic narratives embodied in the various sewing materials.
Clothing Constructions. Varying Dates (2004-2019). Jana Jarosz. Inherited textiles, hand-drafted patterns, inherited buttons, trim, thread, found objects.
Digital files of photographed clothing: jpegs, varying dpi.
Remembering through material culture. The touch of a button on a favorite dress or a photograph of a faded Easter outfit in a faded photograph sparks story fragments. “I spent two years listening” (Wilcox, 146). Using family photographs, text, and images of inherited material culture, I am exploring new ways of layering together old objects. Animated GIFs act as a digital palimpsest by encapsulating the fragmented narrative of a lived experience.
Collected memories from generation to generation are written out to illustrate the ways in which the fluid nature of constructing one’s subject can mirror the creative nature of constructing clothing.
Works cited:
Wilcox, Claire. Patchwork A Life Amongst Clothes. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.
Portrait Construction: Kathleen Arline Doughterty | Born 1907 | Waterbury, CT, 2018-2019. Jana Jarosz. Photographs, text. Digital files: GIFs, jpegs, varying dpi.
Portrait Construction: Elaine Klein | born November 13, 1927 | Boston, 2018-2019. Jana Jarosz. Photographs, text. Digital files: GIFs, jpegs, varying dpi.
Portrait Construction: Louise Berendt | born 1920 | Chicago, 2018-2019. Jana Jarosz. Photographs, text. Digital files: GIFs, jpegs, varying dpi.
Portrait Construction: Perla Hazan | born 1931 | Meknes, Morocco, 2018-2019. Jana Jarosz. Photographs, text. Digital files: GIFs, jpegs, varying dpi.