Woven (2015)

I had not done any sustained figurative work for about a decade when I started this project. I had been reading The Art and Iconography of Late Post-Classic Central Mexico, a printed record of the conference held in 1977 on the topic, when I came across this sentence:

In their book, Mexican Indian Costumes, the Cordrys state that the Zoques of Tuxtla Gutierrez and the Tzotils of San Bartolome de los Llanos believe that there are brujas, witches, who endlessly spin but do not weave, the implication being, “that spinning without weaving is a futile and unproductive occupation” (Cordry and Cordry 1968: 42).

“Spinning without weaving" was the phrase that caught my attention and the idea of continually doing a preparatory step that never leads to a completed process. Woven was born from my reaction to that phrase.

For this project, I established the following operating guidelines. One: all photo shoots had to have at least two people posing together. Two: the models had to be in physical contact and preferably “weaving” together in some way. Three: the series is non-sexual, and so while the models are nude the images are not erotic.