2023 TAPESTRIES

PATCHWORK ARCHIVE

Izy Carney

I started to learn to sew when I was 16. I went to Michaels and used my ice cream shop money to buy a $70 sewing machine. I thought it was a CLASSY sewing machine with that kind of price tag. As it turns out, it could barely sew a straight line. When I turned 20, my parents got me a great sewing machine. Mostly, I used it for clothes and making little pillows. It wasn’t until 2023 that I began to view the things I made as art and myself an artist. The big difference for me was making things with meaning and intention - using fabric to better understand myself and the world around me.

Apartment Building (Mar 2023). Bleached fabric, yarn, collaged paper, tin can, metal foil.

In this piece, I explore my fascination with the anonymity of apartment buildings by dissecting bits of who I am, chopping them up and putting them into small windows, as if I was a stranger looking into myself. I loved living in big apartment buildings. This came with a lot of mess and drama but I loved walking up to the building, see lights on in various windows, and be reminded that so many lives exist together (and separately) in one space.

In this piece I also took a lot of inspiration from one of my favorite artists, Jacob Lawrence, particularly this panel of buildings in Harlem from his famous Migration Series.

31. Migration Series, Jacob Lawrence. Read more about it!

Grief in My Marrow (May 2023). Weaved yarn, linen, plastic wrapper, plastic solo cup, cotton.

This was my first attempt to pack a big topic into a piece of art. Generally, it is about generational sexual trauma that women of many families shoulder throughout their lives.

There were two specific inspirations for this piece. 1. In Feburary 2023, my best friend Jess and I went to the National Gallery to see the new exhibit about ceiling art in Europe. We were expecting to crane our necks backward to see all the fantastic replicas of the paintings that once adorned the church ceilings of 17th-century Rome. Instead, what we found were sketches of those ceilings. BORING!! Needless to say, it was underwhelming. In one of those sketches, I found this lady, and I thought it was funny she was holding what appeared to be her own face. She was immediately my muse.

2. My second inspiration and the piece's namesake comes from Thao & the Get Down Stay Down's song "Marrow." The whole album, Temple, is a masterpiece.

self portrait (June 2023). Naturally dyed cotton, charred cotton, linen, paper, dried flowers.

Play Pretend (July 2023). Recycled cardboard, cotton.