Concrete Was Once Wet

Weaving is a ruminating act, hours spent laboring in repetitive motion. Weaving an image, and even text, demands a deep deliberation of that image as it is frozen, built permanently into the textile over many days and weeks. Originally inspired by the landscapes of Joshua Tree, CA, where the roads and property lines can easily be seen scratched into the dirt over the wide and flat expanses of land, Maren Jensen began to create work using grid imagery to work with ideas around these borders and what they perceived to be contrived permanence, exposing these lines as truly fluid; imperceptible to certain eyes. More recently, she began incorporating text and poetry into her tapestry weavings. Playing with impermanence by working with loose and indirect phrasing, by way of a belabored and confined medium, she continues to demand fluidity within infrastructure and systems we deem concrete. In the place of limitation, of lines drawn in sand, what can be dreamt up?

One of the newer weavings in this body of work features the phrase, “I Accept Death/And Now For Hope.” Referencing a personal experience with grief and its many ebbs and flows, these words are meant to speak to the difficulty of accepting the finality of loss, but also the often more difficult task of leaning into a sense of hope. While this work is quite personal, grief is a near universal experience–finding the transition from hopelessness to hopefulness is inherently regenerative. Another work incorporates the text, “Define Freedom/CUT/The ‘Law’ Has No Body/Dreaming As A Tool/Search For The Root and Pull/Make Sacrifices.” These words illustrate a brainstorm inspired by the work of Angela Davis, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and historical and contemporary abolitionist movements. Specifically, Ruth Wilson Gilmore defines abolitionist thinking as an act of creation, of reimagining, of making something anew. Regenerative thinking, as it comes to our society’s function, is foundational to abolitionist thinking and abolitionist movements.

An opening reception for this exhibit will be held on October 7th, from 5 to 7 pm.