Identity Clothing

Identity Clothing are articles of clothing fashioned from book pages, embellished with cyanotype* images. The objects act as lessons of feminine and domestic practice. Like an archeologist, collecting artifacts and theorizing historical stories, I use appropriated imagery from personal family photo albums to fabricate my ancestral story. The images reference concepts linked to the blueprint of identity. The clothing forms are made from book pages with symptomatic titles of domestic lessons such as, The Modern Household Encyclopedia and The Guide to a Modern Marriage.

History Dress #2, Cyanotype and Mixed Media, 3'X18"X2"

History Dress #3, Cyanotype and Mixed Media, 3'X18"X2"

History Dress #1, Cyanotype and Mixed Media, 3'X18"X2"

History Brassier, Cyanotype and Mixed Media, 12"X12"X4"

* In 1842, Sir John Hershel (inventor of cyanotype) began using potassium ferricyanide as a light-sensitive photographic process. The resulting rich deep blue color - Prussian Blue, named for the watercolor pigment, is known today as the photographic process: Cyanotype. The process requires contact printing a negative to a coated surface in ultraviolet light (sunlight) for exposure. A somewhat modified version of this process is the basis for the classic blueprint that is used by architects and builders.