Sketchbook//Hand Towels

Sketchbook Entries

Unraveling Purity
I struggled at first to figure out what i wanted to accomplish for my studio project, but i was drawn to the hand towels i saw almost immediately. What interested me at first is that they function as a necessity for drying after purifying ones hands, but also as an accessory. I began by embroidering and collaging on them, but i didn't feel satisfied just yet with what i had created. As i was working on the orange towel, my needle kept accidentally catching the fabric and unraveling the threads. I was fascinated by this and just started pulling at the unraveling thread. I began to love the process. The way time passed while i was unraveling felt similar to how time seemed to pass as i traveled through all of the sites we were visiting. My perception of time was super skewed, and i came to realize that I really had no idea how much time was actually passing.The process was extremely meditative, but also disorientating-as i pulled the images got more and more skewed. This unraveling also created a barrier between me actually being able to use these towels. This is a barrier i also felt while traveling though the various temples and shrines, i felt uncomfortable as an outsider in these spiritual sites, wanting to understand and feel pure, but still completely aware that i was a tourist, therefore an intruder.