I’ve been investigating pattern making as a cultural construct and its historical relationship to women’s work and classist work. Patterns materialize in many forms, and are prevalent in woven textiles, such as blankets, clothing, or rugs, all functioning as a means of protection. Language is also woven. The etymological relationship between text, textiles, texture, contexture and context led me to weave the typography in this series into textile-like messages. The titles, which reveal the messages, can be integral if displayed as a series. Rearranging the order changes the text’s emphasis and what we visualize first in the narrative. In the shadows, women work, nameless faceless, it’s complicated, or “women work, nameless faceless, in the shadows, it’s complicated, etc.

My work often uses language and typography as a medium to create social commentary, but the type has usually been legible. These pieces push the boundaries of clarity, legibility and readability. Like many women pattern makers and artists whose work is hidden inside their homes, or behind manufacturers names, men they worked for, or husbands/partners they worked with, the messages in these pieces are also hidden, inside the pattern. The message makes the pattern. The message is the pattern.

The work’s experimental relationship with language and typography questions our ability to look closer and more critically at this art form’s complicated history, and to recognize and give credit to the overlooked women who make this work. Ironically each piece is designed using the typeface Politica Light.