Victoria DeBlassie makes the most delicious smelling and looking orange peel fabric. Victoria’s work is on display now through February at Make Hang!
Victoria DeBlassie’s Statement for “Collect, Skin, Dry, Stitch, Repeat”
Orange is both an object and a color, simultaneously concrete and abstract. Similarly, I de-familiarize the initial object of the orange into an orange colored textile by stitching the peels together. Through the process of reworking the rinds, the essential characteristics of the initial object are apparent, but almost unrecognizable in the final form. The orange peel textiles I create engage all the senses rather than privileging sight to accentuate how we experience the world through our bodies. I invite the “viewers” to become “sensers” to fully engage their bodies through experiencing art. My intention is that the “sensers” will be transformed like the orange peel material I work with.
For my site-specific installation at Make Hang Gallery, Collect, Stitch, Dry, Sew, Repeat, my intention is to emphasize the unique roots of Make Hang as both a gallery and a studio space by highlight the labor and process of my art. I will be working in the gallery on a spiral shaped immersive environment made from orange peels during the course of two months.
