Stain is a set of eight different spill patterns, digitally woven into fine Spanish unbleached cotton and linen napkins that, with use, will acquire an ongoing patina as evidence of conviviality. The standard of the classic white napkin is rejected in its notion of perfection as an illusion that demands unsustainable and destructive practices. "Stain" napkins embrace smears and dabs both for their beauty as well as a record of life well lived.
Photography and textiles are both built from particles, and so there is a natural collaboration between these two methodologies. With the rise of digitally interfaced production, these two material outputs are able to communicate directly. The spill patterns were digitized directly as photographic images and then returned to a material modality as they were woven into a textile. Emphatically woven into cloth, these stained motifs invite the real stains of use to build up and create new patterns of their own as they track a life lived. This notion of a stain rejects the modernist aesthetic of blank whiteness and the new, while embracing a lived history.
These aesthetic positions have a real world impact. Table linens maintain their whiteness through bleaching after each use, releasing a constant, daily flow of toxic chlorine into the environment. Embracing the aesthetic of the stain provides an alternative model where there is no need to maintain the rigid whiteness, and thus no need for daily bleaching.
We need your help to begin this change, to engage in aesthetics that speak to your ethics. What we do in our personal lives--the food we eat, whether purchased or gardened, the clothes we wear, the cleaning products we use--all have wide and deep-reaching affects on our world and all of us who inhabit planet earth. By paralleling our aesthetic choices with our political and moral beliefs we will shift our engagement with, and impact upon our planet.
This collaboration has led us to explore materiality and the relationships between art and design, photography and textiles, and our individual practices. We are two artists working on this project on our own, outside of corporate structures and funding. Your support will not only enable us to produce these napkins but will also provide the means for our continued collaboration as we explore the tensions between aesthetics and ethics in art, labor, and life.
It is impossible to overfund this project. Our minimum goal will allow us to meet the manufacturing minimum order, without which we will not be able to realize this project. Funding beyond this will not only enable us to produce more napkins, it will also provide support for the research and development of future projects. Your support is deeply meaningful, we cannot do this without you. Thank you.
kaledo-art
janainaart
snowghoul
germansingergirl
jbbartram-illu
