Hold / Series: Held Together
$495.00
Artist: Tanya Smith
Medium: Hand-dyed reclaimed cotton muslin, hand stitching
Artist Statement:
Hold is a study in material memory and resilience. Using a scrap of reclaimed muslin hand-dyed black, I have wrapped it tightly to the white background fabric using a single binding of white thread. The impact is immediate: the surrounding ground fabric puckers and pulls inward toward the centre, permanently altered by the pressure. This is how I view the intersecting relationships of mind, body, and land. We are constantly subjected to shifts, distance, and tension, but this piece focuses on the endurance of the bond. I am not interested in things breaking down; I am interested in the fact that they don’t. The thread holds, the fabric remembers, and the connection remains intact despite the strain.
Artist Biography:
I find beauty in what most people discard. Reclaimed fabric, paper, and found materials are things that carry the distinct evidence of a previous life. Having spent over a decade working professionally as a photographer, my eye has always been drawn to the structural history of a space. It was the crumbling wall behind a subject, the peeling paint, or the worn edges that told the real story. That fundamental curiosity has not changed. I have simply transitioned from documenting that wear to manipulating it physically. Today, my practice is intentionally slow and tactile. Working with reclaimed textiles, I hand dye, hand stitch, and allow the material to guide the process. The rust, the fray, and the soft collapse of something used and set aside are not defects to work around. They are the work itself. I live and work in Niagara, Ontario, near the shores of Lake Erie, where the grit, debris, and weathered textures of the local beaches constantly inform the physical boundaries of my studio practice.
