Don’t You Dare Talk About It, 2016.

Quiet sounds of steam curdle as wine stains are set into an tangled, mordanted white dress. It’s sleeves catch under foot as they change to the deepest stinky violet. Where emotional labour and trauma connect to historical dye and fibre techniques, a performative body of work takes hold.

Don’t You Dare Talk About It was a performance of stain making; a process to validate memories of alcoholism and shame. Worn and sat on white silk, a steamer gurgling beside, three green-glass red wine bottles are drunk. Every spill turned permanent stain in the steam guided by hand.

The remnants and video documentation form a new installation. The surreal stained dress and dirty stained tights hang on the wall as they did in the performance. The long stretch of splotchy once-white cotton, now a map of smears, ponds and light footprints, sits below. Three near empty bottles and three wine tinted glasses stand, and the tall steamer goes, humming out little clouds of steam, present and evaporating.