Commonwealth & Council presents works by Cirilo Domine, Jeremy Chase Sanders, and Lee Maida about textiles and bodilly intimacy.

Cirilo Domine repurposes an old, worn kimono made of indigo-dyed asa (hemp) into a fundoshi, a strip of cloth used as a traditional Japanese undergarment. Measuring 10 inches in width by 96 inches in length, the fundoshi incorporates the holes, repairs, patches, tears, and stains of the kimono. With layers of running stitches that resemble ghost images of architectural blueprints, the remade garment further shifts in its form and function when displayed on the wall like a scroll - an object of contemplation that chronicles our passage from cradle to grave - testifying to our transforming bodies within a socio-economic landscape.

Jeremy Chase Sanders’ series of cum rags celebrates otherwise disposable pieces of fabric. Sanders personalizes each one for each person in his online community. Borrowing from synesthesia, a neurological condition that associates color with a number and letter of the alphabet, he hand-dyes and hand-weaves each cum rag to correspond to individual screen name. He mails a cum rag to each person, who then posts a video documenting its use on a shared internet site. An archive of the body, the cum rags extend our individual and collective stories, celebrating an otherwise anonymous socio-sexual transaction.

Lee Maida’s alchemy vessels conflate traditions of clay and cloth, using clay as a body and fiber material that connects the two. She considers alchemy as an archaic spiritual practice, a linguistic slippage and a socio-sexual metaphor through manipulation of craft and context. Maida uses abstractions, utilities and symbolisms as aesthetic directives and decoys to meditation. The vessels embody space and time, thinking and feeling.

Commonwealth & Council is open Saturdays from 12 to 5PM and by appointment.