Morgan Ford Willingham

The Incident (unwitnessed) 
pigment and hand embroidery on cotton sateen
7 x 15 in.

The Note
pigment and hand embroidery on cotton sateen
7.5 x 15.25 in.

From the day Imogen was born, my life changed. Every second, good, bad, or somewhere in between, is part of a building, poetic existence. An existence that at times recalls feelings of reliving my own childhood through a doppelganger, while at other times observing a being as strange and alien as meeting a random child on the street – I am at once curious and arrested the mix of emotions I carry from day to day. Each interaction is laced with the hopes and desires I carry for how her life will progress, and yet, the mother-daughter relationship is complicated by the unexpected way in which the reality of those shared moments and events unfold.

The series Haiku alludes to the intimate daily circumstances between my daughter and me, and the historical and cultural influences that shape us both as individuals and as a familial unit. We are tied by experience, memory, and DNA. The series consists of multiple images arranged in sets of implied narratives. Each piece is deciphered through the examination of symbolism, metaphor, color, and movement through the images and thread. The images incorporate pigment prints on cotton sateen fabric, with hand embroidered thread throughout. The thread serves to physically connect separate photographed moments in time, while also visually referencing the emotional journey we experience together every day through the use of stitched patterns.

© Morgan Ford Willingham