Schedule your session to contribute to Throughline at the Tomayko Foundation, March 13 – April 17.

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About the Work

Throughline is a fiber and performance work created through one-on-one oral storytelling sessions of participants sharing what they know about holding someone close. Seated across from one another, I use each sitter’s hand as a loom, finger-knitting a continuous cord of yarn while they speak. Each story becomes a physical extension of the last, building an archive of our messy, tender entanglements with one another.

The cord started with sessions with my children, who taught me to finger knit after art summer camp. At the time, I was creating metaphorical representations of female pelvises as portals. From there, my attention turned to umbilical cords, the first throughline we all share that links us to past generations. We arrive connected to this lifeline, then spend our lives deciding which experiences, beliefs, and stories to carry forward.

At its core, Throughline is a listening tour and an archive of lessons of togetherness curated for the future. With thousands of yards of yarn yet to be knit, the project is an invitation to slow down and connect in person, eye-to-eye, and hand-to-hand to share the best of what we know about being in relationship with one another.

What to Expect

You and I will be seated, facing each other from across a small table. If you choose, I’ll record audio of our time together. While you talk, I will knit on one of your hands, using your index through pinky fingers, with wool yarn hand-dyed with Logwood and Madder Root. Your name or initials, the date, and a “title” for your contribution will go on a tag tied to the cord.

Contributions can vary from your own firsthand experience to a family story, folklore, news article, spiritual text, or scene from a play or book (one of my kids chose to read a children’s book).

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