Calendar Year
cotton fabric, embroidery floss, metal, cotton twill tape, digital audio, digital playback device, speaker, cushion
6 feet by 6 feet by 6 feet
2018
An audio and fabric installation with a large quilt tied to a triangle wedge shaped metal frame. Each square in the quilt represents one day from February 2017 to January 2018 and uses color and triangles to code the artist’s emotional impression of the day on one of three factors: health, work, or relationships.
Download PDF of full audio transcript for Calendar Year
The exterior of the Calendar Year structure located in an open, carpeted gallery space with large curving windows to the left in the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. The exterior quilt is bordered with white and the 365 squares use contrasting colors and different triangle sizes to code the artist’s emotional impression, with navy and yellow for work, black and cream for health, and burgundy and pale green for relationships. At the base of the quilt is a legend for the emotional impressions code and a sign saying “Please Do Not Touch".
The interior of Calendar Year. The angle iron frame is visible, as are the white cotton twill ties holding the white fabric panels in place. In the center of the structure, a white man with a shaved head, beard and glasses sits on a gray pad on the carpeted floor. Visible through the white backing cloth are the colors of the quilt squares. Some squares on the interior side have numerical dates cross stitched on them. These dates correspond with the audio recording of the artist reading those entries from her journal. Hanging off the left side of the structure is a printed transcript of the recording and a touchable version of the quilt square triangle coding in fabric.
A side view of Calendar Year in the same open, large windowed gallery. Several people look at the structure and read the text.