BIO
Emma MacLean is an artist, educator and maker. In Chicago, she has been seen teaching with Mudlark, The Viola Project, and Chicago Children's Theatre. She is currently a teaching artist with A.B.L.E. (Actors Breaking Limits and Expectations) Ensemble. Emma is interested in art and accessibility in all its forms. Whose stories do we tell, whose do we not? Who is invited to see/hear/smell/touch those stories, be in those spaces? How do we tell bodies that they are welcome or not? Go talk to her about the intersection of disability and art.
Recently, Emma has been working on an embroidery and textile project about the stories of people's experiences with chronic pain. It is a small effort to expand the way we visualize pain beyond the terrible 10 face scale often presented in doctor's offices. She is also interested in the ways time is made permanent through stitching and impermanent by pain. She began a quilting project in her first term that she will continue with this year. It, like most things, is a work in progress.
INSPIRED BY
- my aunt Joan
- Heidi Parkes
- Lorna Simpson
- El Anatsui
- the quilts of Gee's Bend
EXPLORING:
I am exploring pain, time, and the invisible made visible. As someone who lives with chronic pain, I often have a loose grip on time. It is hard to imagine myself out of pain when in it, and once out, it is hard to remember what it was like to be there. Hand quilting, I've found, is a way of impressing time into an object. Row after row of tiny stitches that mark the slow march forward. I am also interested in recycling fabric, rather than buying something new. What stories did the fabric know before it knew me? What does it tell now?