Reconstructing artists Marika Kent, Brenda Abbandandolo, and Kristen Sieh are collaborating on an Impulse Thread project to tease out the visual world of Reconstructing. Marika Kent shares a process update below:
“We met with a shared desire to explore the tactile/visual world of Reconstructing. Brenda shared with us her recent experience in Mississippi at the Gee’s Bend Quilting Retreat. From salvaged bolts of muslin, loose fabric scraps and swatches, worn denim and retired bed sheets, we found traction in an intuitive, communal process that in itself could be called “reconstructing.” And while we perhaps approached coherency in articulating the thematic potency of a quilt (a durable object that preserves the character of its individual pieces, a crucible of American hand-craft and history, an insulator, a commodity, an art), it was the labor itself that brought us to the instinct to design and steward costumes collectively, sew together, and as we do, evolve and iterate a sartorial methodology for our production that may also have scenic/sculptural applications.”
