Mohair * Mesh * Jersey
fat bodies.
bodies that are only accepted when hidden.
Bringing the shapes of unruly bodies into focus.
Playing with them.
Showing how much joy they can hold.
The starting point is the T-shirt. The T-shirt that is too small for me, that constricts me, that I always wanted to fit into but never did.
My body refuses the shape. Refuses the norm. Pushes back against the fabric. Makes the seams burst. It puffs up, squeezes in, spills out again elsewhere. Back and forth like that. A give and take.
The shorts.
I had a pair like that once. Yellow.
I loved them. I got them from my aunt. But I never wore them. I didn’t dare. So they stayed in the closet, in the back corner.
Sometimes I would take them out, put them on, and stand in front of the mirror in my childhood room. Full of expectation. I think I hoped my body had magically changed overnight, that I would see something different in the mirror. A body beautiful enough to wear yellow short pants. But it wasn’t like that, so the yellow pants went back into the closet.
Knitting is my kind of witchcraft, my magic. So I knit, like so many women before me. In this craft, I feel connected to them.
