lovatiesė
lovatiesė (Lithuanian) = bedspread .
2023–ongoing.
A cluster of works typewritten into the twilight space between weaving and writing, between past and present, between authentic and copy.
*
To write translates as rašyti into Lithuanian. Rašyti, in turn, translates as to write or to inscribe a pattern. Patterns on Lithuanian Easter eggs are not painted or drawn, they are written. The word raštas connects the signs of the alphabet with the signs of ornament, binding together language and pattern, text and textile, poetry and bedspread.
*
lovatiesė* is inspired by the patterns of my late great-aunt's bedspreads, woven in a small village in South Lithuania. We called those bed coverings divonai, their regional name. As the last generation of weavers dies, they are leaving linen cupboards full of towels, tablecloths, rolls of fabric, bedding, woven decades ago.
Her loom stood by the window. Covered in a white net curtain, the window gave light and a view. Like a writer with a desk, she had a space to think and to write — rašyti — her textiles.
*
I use a typewriter as a loom and as a printmaking tool. Typing becomes a metaphor for weaving, weaving a metaphor for writing and speaking. Semi-translucent pages of light but tactile 18gsm ino-shi paper build images reminiscent of textile patterns. Words blend into black and red typewriter prints, overlap, vanish, then re-emerge as lexical entities from a network of new metaphors.
Written bilingually, Lovatiesė sets the innovation of contemporary poetry against the perseverance of textile design — composing poetry at the periphery of reading experience.
