Drought

Drought is a large tablecloth printed with drawings I made of satellite feeds. During the summer of 2023 vast swaths of North America were covered with smoke from wildfires. While my home was spared the smoke, local flora showed signs of extreme stress from many months without rain. 2024 has begun with half the normal snowpack in the mountains, raising the spectre of yet greater water shortages.

Embroidering a tablecloth acknowledges the labour of women whose embroidered motifs often included flowers –decoration evoking a domestic pleasure through colour and pattern. I have embroidered the local plants that bring me pleasure such as ferns, salal, spirea, maples, and cedars. But what is normally green is brittle and desiccated. I have made them aesthetic yet abnormal in their colour: ashen beige or rusted leaves, and blackened stalks. In the smoke indicated on the tablecloth, I have embroidered small red triangles which are the cartographic symbol for fire. I have added triangles around the edge: decoration as an indication of trouble.

Drought is displayed on circular table. Members of the community could be invited to discuss how we “set the table” which might include nothing at all, a large vase with local dead plants, or clear plastic plates/cutlery that allow viewers to think of drought in the context of their lives. Are we resigned to empty plates, or can we have helpings of constructive ideas? Drought plays on idioms such as “what we bring to the table”, “table a motion”., “a seat at the table”, “to turn the tables” and so forth.