Emily Dierkes


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Installation 58, 2017



Margaret Ellen Strother Dierkes, my mother, passed away during the first few months of my tenure at Towson. Finding a way to grieve my mother while also creating art work was a difficult prospect. My mother was an incredible sewer and craftswoman, and I avoided utilizing the tools of her trade for the first year and a half after her death. I inherited an abundance of sewing machines, pairs of scissors, hot glue guns, and boxes upon boxes of cloth and thread, but these materials were unknown to me. On one boring Sunday, I found a giant plastic bag of pre-cut quilt squares from the late 1970’s- early 1980’s. Unfamiliar with her professional sewing machines, I grabbed a needle and thread and, without a plan, began sewing the pieces together, careful not to repeat patterns. I watched our favorite show, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (a marathon was on) and pieced the squares together in a long chain. When I finally decided to count the squares, they numbered 58. My mother lost her battle to cancer when she was 58 years old. Margaret Ellen Strother was born and died in November. There are 11 bobbins to signify the 11th month. The clotheshorse at the center of the installation belonged to my grandmother and is over 120 years old. My grandmother, Jo Anne Ryan Strother, also an incredible craftswoman, passed away one year after her daughter, my mother, at the age of 90.



Installation 58, Fabric, thread, antique wooden bobbins, wooden clotheshorse (family heirloom) 2016-17, Installation Towson University Holtzman MFA Gallery, 2017



(Detail) Installation 58, Fabric, thread, antique wooden bobbins, wooden clotheshorse (family heirloom) 2016-17, Installation Towson University Holtzman MFA Gallery, 2017



Installation 58, Fabric, thread, antique wooden bobbins, wooden clotheshorse (family heirloom) 2016-17, Installation Maryland Art Place, 2017



Cut Piece for Ellen (video still), 2016



(Installation view) Ellen’s Sewing Room, Acrylic, beeswax, glitter, tape, epoxy resin, and fabric from Mother's sewing room, 1970 to 2010's (Scraps from baby blanket, artist’s childhood clothing, Mom’s clothes, Furniture upholstery, and curtains from childhood home) on MDF and panel, 2017, Holtzman MFA Gallery, Towson Univesity



Ellen’s Sewing Room, Acrylic, beeswax, glitter, tape, epoxy resin, and fabric from Mother's sewing room, 1970 to 2010's (Scraps from baby blanket, artist’s childhood clothing, Mom’s clothes, Furniture upholstery, and curtains from childhood home) on MDF and panel, 2017


Emily Dierkes


to contact:
emily.dierkes.@gmail.com