Fragments
Exhibited at Craft Victoria, 2024

Fragments was beaded for my daughter while she was still in the womb, made between me and the loom in a house by the ocean. Woven through the work are fragments of stories from her great-grandmother, grandmother, and donor—stories I wanted to hold onto and tell her when she grew up. This is the translated text within the beading:

Tapioca is crushed and dried on big concrete pads it has a sour starchy smell.
The red of betel nut.

Somebody was handing the kids through the window. I remember the tanks coming through my father’s orchard. The castro (castle) was one room made of stones. There were seven of us living there. We had a well, and mostly lemon trees. The Nazis took the cow.

We would crush glass and stick it to the kite tail. The wooden house was surrounded by lots of vegetation, it was like a jungle to me. It backed onto a canal and a small banana plantation. Behind it was an army base. Kim had a little boat that was big enough for me to sit in. I think it was red.