Mid 2016 I was approached to be apart of the Adobe Collabograms project. An project where Adobe pair up two people of different disciplines and commission a collaboration. I was paired up with David Madero, a metal artist in Mexico.
When I saw Davids work I was floored. His sculptures are amazing and I was at a complete loss at how we would combine our crafts. When we first me over Skype it was quite surreal, we have such similar values and from the get go had a lot of complimenting strengths. We established that whatever we were going to create, it had to tick the ‘Ive always wanted to do this’ box for both of us. I think we were instantly supportive of each other and it was super easy. We knew we were friends after about 15 minutes of conversation. Throughout the process, which was challenging for me at various points David coached me through with relentless kindness and support.
One thing that stood out to us was the strong contrast between us in almost every way. Davids work is very masculine, strong its it subject and material. As an embroiderer, my work, historically known as womans work is light, colourful and soft. From the get go we knew we wanted to show this contrast, instead of one of us moving into the realms of the other. Complimenting instead of compromising each other.
Playing around with ideas we settled on the scorpion, which even looking at images made me uncomfortable, so we knew that was a great platform to start. The scorpion is such an fearsome creature. Its whole being is built to fight. Armoured and armed it epitomises masculinity. It was the perfect choice for us as it is aggressive and highly weaponized, but shows a deadly beauty through its hard and soft features. We sought to change its symbolism of danger by adding something a tad more whimsical, while not compromising its nobility and natural beauty.
The embroidery on the stark metal sculpture, adorning it and its ‘weapons’ highlighting both the beauty and cruelty of nature.
The piece is about duality. The duality around us, in us and between us.
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