Easter ‘87.

I'm from a rural town in Ohio at the edge of appalachia where both sides of my family have lived for over 150 years. Growing up in that environment, there is a very particular expectation of how a woman should live her life. At 40, my current age, if I were my mom, I'd have a 21-year-old and a 10-year-old. I have a puppy. It is not hard to see that my life has taken a different path.

The source photo used in the piece is from my family's archive of snapshots, a photo of my mom and me at the farmhouse where she grew up on Easter in 1987. As a child, so many of my tangible memories are looking out of windows/screen doors, dreaming, hoping, imagining the possibilities beyond. I stitched into a window screen, using a traditional woman's craft (embroidery), speaking to both the memories I have of growing up in our little 600-square-foot house in Coshocton, Ohio, and to the ways the women who came before me could express themselves artistically. The child has been left out of the embroidered image to show that even though I might look like my mom and be similar to her in so many ways, I am a different person. Pixilization of the original snapshot reflects the fallibility of memory and the systems, consciously or unconsciously, imposed on women.

The final piece is hung perpendicular to the wall to give it a more window-like feel. You can view the clean front or the knots and threads that start to unravel from the back. It is my way of reconciling what was to be with what is, while also seeing the beauty and possibility that still lies ahead.