Mirror Mirror 

Mirror Mirror 

A series of woven tapestries dense with color and movement. Referencing the magic mirror from fairy tales and popular culture with it’s title, this series is a response to watching my children, both in their late teens, withdraw into their phones as the social isolation of quarantine changed how they participated, physically and emotionally, in daily life.

Mirrors show up in the ancient story of Snow White in the role of oracle, and more recently, in the Harry Potter stories to reveal “the deepest, most desperate desires of our hearts”, per Dumbledore. The allegory of a magic mirror is one of peering away outside of oneself, it can be used to reveal what we don’t have, and be a reminder of imprisonment. Use of the word mirror in the series title suggests watching my children disappear into longing for a world outside of their current confines. The disillusionment of their features the further they are from the iPhones suggests a loosing of self, loss of structure and focus.

The piece titled Zoom Break does not have a child holding a phone, it is instead a portrait of a single person, eyes closed, facing forward with a vibrating aura of unfocused edges. This portrait is based on a quick photo I took of my son on his first full day of online courses and Zoom meetings. It is an interpretive portrait of how frazzled and depleted he looked as he stood for a moment outside his bedroom door halfway through his day. This piece is the first of the series, made at the very beginning of the pandemic when we did not know how long the shelter in place order would extend. The three subsequent portraits were made at the end shortly before the pandemic was declared to be over, the disillusionment of their features the further they are from the iPhones suggests a loosing of self, loss of structure and focus.