The Coat That Flies Sometimes
"The Ladder," digital art by Stephen T. Yeakley, performed by Hannah Yeakley, coat by Christen Mattix
The Coat That Flies Sometimes...Finally Flies!
After seven years, I have finally completed “The Coat that Flies Sometimes When No One is Looking,” a fiber sculpture begun in early 2017. At the time, I was living in an apartment in downtown Bellingham. One day, a violet, padded coat appeared on a bench in the lobby. Those of you who have read my book Skein know that I have a thing for benches! The coat had an enchanting scent and a tessellated pattern reminiscent of scales on a mermaid’s tail.
"The Coat that Flies Sometimes When No One is Looking" is about possibility--and the hope of transforming time and loss through tiny daily habits. The 18 foot by 8 foot sculpture was inspired by women’s work, especially traditional quilting, which is as American as jazz. Like a jazz musician, I improvised new combinations of color and pattern from salvaged garments and fabric scraps, transforming the mundane and discarded into a large-scale work of art. The idea that these broken, discarded pieces of fabric could be stitched together into a new whole gives me hope in dark times.
By piecing together this 18 ft. x 8 ft. sculpture, I wanted to make Time visible to an extravagant and absurd degree. Time is sacred. Time is life energy. We can accomplish impossible things by committing time towards our dreams every day. Patience is invincible.
I'm grateful for the ways this sculpture has clarified major themes across my multi-faceted art practice. For example, the same concern for breaking and reunifying the surface is visible in my fruit paintings.
Last summer, when I showed my coat to digital artist Stephen T. Yeakley, he had a vision and asked to improvise an artwork with my coat sculpture. His wife Hannah Yeakley kindly donned the coat and shimmied up a 20 foot ladder in the hot sun, and Stephen did a photoshoot right there in the school playground where I was working on a mural at the time.