SARAH LAMPHERE

Art and its materiality are in an increasingly unique position to inform our selfhood—altering our present, future, and even past. Taking a look back on my upbringing in rural Iowa, I regularly use materials and motifs that I am familiar with being raised on a farm. At an early age, I had been introduced to the slaughtering process and death that has left a lasting impact. Though at the same time, this existential fear ran parallel to the serenity of the repetitive and rhythmic patchwork of corn and soybean fields that I called home. Likewise, my work aims to confront my existential anxiety while also celebrating the positive qualities of human limitedness through themes of livestock and its by-products that evoke mortality, allowing me to reflect on these transient moments.

Each of my pieces invites viewers to a sensory experience that blurs the line between sculpture and performance with ritualistic actions by immersing myself in both the task and my environment when hand-spinning coiling lengths of yarn, mending, and weaving to construct largescale textile installations. As I demonstrate these acts of meditation and endurance within my works, Hide #70238 and Hide #70178, these repetitive yet cathartic actions allow me to become aware of my body and its world through patterning, weaving, and mending reminiscent of the traditions and rituals in craft processes through my art and its materiality.