Joanna Rogers
Horror Vacuii, 2023
Buttons hand sewn onto felt 72" x 36"
This piece is styled after a medieval cope. It tells the stories of our mothers' and grandmothers' button boxes, of the button making industry in Birmingham, England (where my parents grew up), and of the way the invention of clothing revolutionized clothing. The design was inspired both by microscopic images of viruses and by images of far away galaxies. The title alludes to the lack of empty space in medieval tapestries where every little gap was filled by flowers.
Joanna Rogers
Conspicuous Consumption, 2023
Cotton dyed with rust, tannins and indigo, found oyster and periwinkle shells 64" x 29"
Conspicuous Consumption tells of the waste of the button making industry in Birmingham, England. Shiploads of pearl oyster shells were shipped to the UK. The button forms were punched out of the shells leaving piles of detritus surrounding the factories.
Joanna Rogers
What Once Was. The Apocalypse Is Now. Rainforest, 2024
Cotton dyed with iron and tannins, hand dyed and hand woven mercerized cotton thread, lichen, wooden beads 30" x 35"
What Once Was: The Apocalypse is Now consists of pieces fashioned after a vintage woman’s shift all of which comment on the global destruction of species and habitats in our rush to harvest the remaining natural resources, whatever the cost. This piece has been dyed and overdyed in iron and tannin vats to create a richly layered effect resembling a garment that has been recently unearthed from a future archaeological dig. Along with its counterpart for the Boreal Forest, this piece speaks to the global destruction of our forests. Living in British Columbia, I am acutely aware of the threat facing the native rainforest in this province. 2021 and 2022 saw a renewed effort to protect old growth trees in the rainforest north east of Port Renfrew from logging. This protest follows in the steps of those in the 1990s which saved the Carmanah and Walbran valleys in Clayoquot Sound from being logged and the Stein Valley near Lytton from facing a similar fate. This piece pays tribute to the protestors who faught to save these old growth forests but also acts as a reminder of what can happen if present and future governments refuse to continue protecting these ecologically crucial habitats.
Joanna Rogers
What Once Was. The Apocalypse Is Now. Arctic., 2024
Cotton dyed with indigo, bubble wrap, raven feathers, seal bones 30" x 35"
What Once Was: The Apocalypse is Now consists of pieces fashioned after a vintage woman’s shift all of which comment on the global destruction of species and habitats in our rush to harvest the remaining natural resources, whatever the cost. This piece, along with its counterpart Antarctic, examines loss of habitat on a continental level. We see images of disappearing ice masses and hear about the devastation this is causing to life in these regions. This is a tribute, but it is also a lament to that which is lost.
Joanna Rogers
Sylvia Pankhurst’s War Belt, 2024
Mercerized cotton thread dyed with logwood, pomegranate, myrobalan, weld, marigold on velvet. 40" x 20"
Inspired by paleolithic string skirts and Incan quipus, this war belt contains the entire poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll in morse code. The dots and dashes are represented by small and large knots. Each thread represents a letter in the poem. Sylvia Pankhurst was a prominent British suffragette and was imprisoned several times for her direct action for this cause. She was an artist, writer and editor. She supported trade unions and working women, was a founding member of the British Communist Party, was a pacifist and anti-fascist, lending her support to Ethiopia after Italy, under Mussolini, invaded the country.
Joanna Rogers
War Belt for FLorence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. Part 1., 2024
Mercerized cotton thread dyed with madder, cochineal, cutch, sappanwood, St Johns Wort on painted canvas with braid 40" x 20"
This piece examines the legacies of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole who were both nurses at the Crimean War. Nightingale was a statitician and used rose charts to illustrate mortality rates at the front as well as in army barracks in the UK thus paving the way for reforms in hygeine. Seacole was an entrepreneur and healer who used her own funds to travel to the Crimea to establish the British Hotel where she not only fed soldiers, but also treated the wounded. This piece contains the first half of the poem The Charge of the Light Brigade by Tennyson in morse code. Each thread is a letter in the poem. The dots and dashes are represented by small and large knots.
Joanna Rogers
I Will Arise, 2022
Mercerized cotton, silk 16" x 15'
This is one of ten weavings which comprise The Chorus. The warp and tabby weft are dyed with plants from my yard while the pattern weft is dyed in indigo. Each weaving in The Chorus contains a message in morse code which is woven into the structure of the piece using a traditional summer and winter pattern. This piece contains the message I Will Arise from the poem The Lake Isle Of Innisfree by Yeats. The phrases I have chosen to weave in this series are all exhortations our endangered species could be silently screaming as they go extinct.
Joanna Rogers
Our Last Cry, 2022
Mercerized cotton, wool, 17" x 15'
This is one of ten weavings which comprise The Chorus. The warp and tabby weft are dyed in indigo while the pattern weft is dyed with madder, marigolds and sappanwood. Each weaving in The Chorus contains a message in morse code which is woven into the structure of the piece using a traditional summer and winter pattern. This piece contains the messgae Our Last Cry from the last morse code message sent by the Frech navy. The phrases I have chosen to weave in this series are all exhortations our endangered species could be silently screaming as they go extinct.
Joanna Rogers
Boudicca’s War Belt, 2023
Linen dyed with indigo and marigolds, silk dupioni 42" x 20"
Inspired by paleolithic string skirts and Incan quipus, this war belt contains the poem "Ave Atque Vale" by Catullus in both the original Latin (marigold) and in English (indigo) in morse code. The dots and dashes of morse code are represented by small and large knots. Each thread is a letter.
Joanna Rogers
Hippolyta’s War Belt, 2023
Mercerized cotton thread dyed with iron and tannins, canvas painted with cassell earth, vintage velvet ribbon 40" x 20"
Inspired by paleolithic string skirts and Incan quipus, this war belt contains the entire poem "Anthem For Doomed Youth" by Wilfred Owen in morse code. The dots and dashes are represented by small and large knots. Each thread represents a letter in the poem.
