Jodi Colella
Overturned, 2026
Women's clothing, domestic materials, lace, wool, cotton, polyester, silk, wood picket 32 in x 26 ft
This rug exists in the space of its domestic utility, on the floor. It represents our Constitution which is being trampled, thrashed, beaten, hammered, clobbered, flattened, undermined, weakened, trumped. I invite viewers to walk on it. It is here for them to step on, run roughshod, wipe the floor, run rings around, treat like a doormat.
Jodi Colella
Had a Great Fall, 2025
Women's clothing, domestic materials, lace, wool, cotton, polyester, silk, wood picket 96x30 in. (with picket)
Weaving these words into my rag rugs, doilies and towels transforms domestic objects into pointed declarations that primarily appeal to the senses. They bridge the chasms between medium and message, tactility and verbiage, luridness and refinement - seducing the eye with tactile materiality and then touching the heart with their wry realities. In this age of censorship and retaliation they combine humor and covert messaging as an act of dissent.
Jodi Colella
Contagion, 2025
Vintage hand towels in cotton and linen, embroidery cotton, ceramic hands, vintage hangers variable approx. 30x15 in.
Designed for drying hands under the aegis of a contempt for science, the towels of Contagion offer supple terrycloth and tactile surfaces beckoning touch and mocking exposure to infectious diseases. They hang from loops featuring woven phrases including Herd Immunity, Germ Theory and Evidence Based. The vintage style embroidery hearkens back to an era before the practice of immunotherapies.
Jodi Colella
Disobedient Doilies, 2026
Milled cotton, hand-spun/hand-dyed cotton, vintage table manipulated for display variable table heights and widths ranging from 56x10 to 56x24 to 42x20 to 48x14 in
Made with labor-intensive processes and intricate, repetitive techniques, they honor makers long gone and poke holes in grindingly eternal power dynamics and gender codes. These works embody the unheard voices of countless women, who make up a chorus speaking truth to power in ways that lacemakers laboring in past centuries often could not.
Jodi Colella
Buckets of Swill, 2025
Hand spun, Hand dyed cotton 14x15 in
Traditionally made to ornament and protect furniture, my Disobedient Doilies take on purposes for which they weren’t originally intended. They look soft and decorative but are borne from tension, sharp points and grueling labor. Each doily requires an immeasurable amount of time to stitch. Performing this process strips the veneer off domesticity, reveals the grit underneath and makes palpable the unseen labor of unrecognized makers.
Jodi Colella
After The March, 2025
Women's clothing, domestic materials, lace, wool, cotton, polyester, silk, wood picket variable from 13x4in to 73x25in
My rag rugs, lace doilies and decorative hand towels flaunt quirky sayings lifted from a century- old word game. The recontextualized period phrases uncannily capture the language of 21st century culture, reflecting today’s coded patterns of speech and cleverly bypassing polite norms. In this age of censorship and retaliation I use humor with covert messaging as an act of dissent. Posing as protest signs left behind by activists who were here before us, they are ragtag expressions of political, social and economic dynamics. Banners to hold high and float in the wind, they brandish texture and a flash of color in opposition to objectionable attitudes we long to unravel.
Jodi Colella
Stinger, 2018
Hundreds of found doilies dyed black and sewn onto a 9-gauge, hand built armature 7 x 24 x 17 feet
Stinger looms larger than life. Its lacy exoskeleton is crafted from found doilies that suggest a history of needlework and domesticity that is left ambiguous. Dyed black and collaged into a mosaic of patterns, they now form the permeable body of a creature feared for its venomous sting and quick shift from repose to attack. Balancing tradition and innovation I used needlework to infuse renewed power to craft traditions often dismissed as feminine. Found objects-the everyday and invisible-are reworked and repurposed, and placed on a pedestal for scrutiny where the psychological is made physical in the way the one form materializes from another.
Jodi Colella
Once Was (Remembrance), 2019
2-sided obelisk created with donated clothing, black velvet, black canvas, red embroidery yarn, earth magnets 12 ft x 5 ft
Once Was is a memorial for all those lost to the opioid epidemic in the prime of their lives. This 12-foot, 2-sided tower is covered with 3,600 poppies that are stitched from donated clothing and then sewn onto a plush black velvet foundation. Each of the 3,600 poppies represents 200 individuals lost.
Jodi Colella
Once Was (Remembrance) detail, 2019
Donated clothing, black velvet, black canvas, red embroidery yarn, earth magnets 12 ft x 5 ft
Detail image of the individual poppies created for the memorial. Each is from donated clothing and stitched with red yarn. And each of the 3600 poppies represents 200 individuals perished in the opioid epidemic between 1999 to 2019.
Jodi Colella
Call Me Rose, 2019
Assorted clothing, red dye, wire, threads, red embroidery thread 30x29x23 in.
My most recent headware sculpture created for the Danforth Museum of Art for their exhibition 'Dressed'. It is an elaborate composition created from gendered clothing dyed red and sewn to a hand wrought armature. It addresses materials, imagery, iconography and memory while questioning how we cover, adorn, and envelop the body in the guise we present to the outside world.
