Sera Waters

Mother’s Collection is another exploration into teeth 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 and inheritances, and bodily bits as carriers shaped by past humans and human events. These larger than life teeth, modeled on my children’s lost teeth (much to their horror), are strung up on a gummy colored hand-dyed rope, a knotty tangle. Collared & Cuffed is showing at @hugomichellgallery until May 16. Artist talk Saturday May 16, from 2pm. Photograph by Grant Hancock With thanks to @createsa_ for current fellowship support.

‘And and and and: accounting for accumulations’ responds to the copious commas my Great Grandmother used in letters written to her daughter after World War II (as observed by my wonderful translator, Janette Lange). Rather than being a result of education, they are more reflective of how you might write to loved ones when forbidden for 6 years and so much to tell. These stitched commas pile atop one another, an imagined internal spilling out of all that has been witnessed and withheld. Collared & Cuffed is on st @hugomichellgallery until May 16. 🌟 Artist talk: Saturday May 16, from 2pm 🌟 Photographs by Grant Hancock With thanks to @createsa_ for current fellowship support.

Night Flight & Retrieval is a work exploring patterns of fleeing and patterns of capture, of the disappeared and states of being netted, and of twilight dispersal and (in)visible modes of restraint. This is made from numerous eyelets with hand-dyed cotton, pearly beads and hand-woven glow in the dark netting. Currently showing at @hugomichellgallery in Collared & Cuffed until May 16. Photography by Grant Hancock Thank you to @createsa_ for current fellowship support.

The Brink is a series of twelve ‘box’ sized embroideries upon hand-stained flannelette. They include such materials as kid leather from gloves, hand-made beads and sequins, appliquéd negligee and assorted cottons, string, shoelaces and more. This series responds to records kept in a small blue book by a family member who sent many boxes of goods back to her homeland of Germany immediately after World War II, to sustain family and friends. I think about her fingers trying to reach across seas, to care and comfort, and the sustenance of goods shipped in her absence, moving across the globe. The boxes were filled with tied packages, morsels, substances for small joys (sugar, coffee), stuffs grown from the sunshine of here, and textiles of all kinds, including flannelette. In one letter my great grandmother wrote of her need for a reel of cotton to mend their clothes, as all was gone. It feels a small shift between times of enough and times on the brink, with kindness and generosity making the difference. Collared & Cuffed is showing at @hugomichellgallery until May 16. Photography by Grant Hancock With thanks to @createsa_ for current fellowship support.

Parts of past portents is a series of latch-hooked bird parts (here ‘head shot’, span’, and ‘clawing‘). Despite my family’s commitment to documenting and caring for records, the past comes through gap ridden, in fragmented parts, damaged, incomplete and unknowable. These messenger bird bits are of insides and outsides, made of lush patterned wool and beaded entrails and outlines. Collared & Cuffed is currently showing at @hugomichellgallery until May 16. Photography: Grant Hancock Thanks to @andreasainsburyartist for wool donations and ever grateful to @deidrepainter for edging support. Thanks to @createsa_ for current fellowship support.

Stash and Haul: underground legwork (few, some and many) are a series of leather and needle lace artworks. I imagine these conglomerate spidery boots and legs have been hauled up by the chains, a discovery of precious stuffs and ideas of loved ones buried for safekeeping. The needle lace occupies eaten away holes with new proliferating growths. My great grandmother buried the shoes of her son who spent time in an English prisoner of war camp, to protect them. After digging them up, awaiting his return, she fretted over telling him most were ruined. Her acts of care and stashing, at a time when textile and shoes were a precarious resource, were thwarted. Collared & Cuffed is showing at @hugomichellgallery until May 16 🥾 Photography:Grant Hancock Thanks to the many shoelace donators who contributed to this series. Thanks to @createsa_ for current fellowship support

Ancestral crowding 🦷 🦷 🦷 A hand-stained, appliquéd and embroidered delve into the overcrowding of spaces and pasts. Inherited crumbly teeth, buried teeth, roots that hang on, decay, disorderly lines, and teeth pushing to the front, in small dark caverns. Here there is a grittiness, a build up, pressure, around finding a place. Not only does this reflect upon the displacements and many refugees my ancestors document living at their farm after World War II but also how the challenges of those times are passed along for generations in teeth, jaws, clenching, pressures and more. Currently showing at @hugomichellgallery in Collared & Cuffed, until May 16 🧵 Photography: Grant Hancock Thanks to @createsa_ for current fellowship support.

Eighty Year Shadow is a large scaled blackwork embroidery, stitched in hand-dyed cotton string upon a thick European linen/hemp. The shadow slowly fades away to a bird-like figure: a shadow, a portent, a messenger from the past that’s been looming for over eight decades, from occurrences that unfolded from World War II. I keep questioning what is inherited, what is passed along through stories, or behaviors, what responsibilities do we live by that these shadows remind us of, or weigh heavily upon us, or accompany us in our daily lives eighty years on. This bird women is myself as well as the women of my family who have grappled before me. Eighty Year Shadow is currently showing in Collared & Cuffed at @hugomichellgallery until May 16. Photography by Grant Hancock. And much gratitude to @createsa_ for current support in the way of a fellowship.

Using vintage buttons and fabrics, ‘Collared and Cuffed’ is a large appliquéd array of life-sized silhouetted parts from German family photographs taken before and after World War II. Tiny speckled stitches peek out from the collars and cuffs, a flush indicating bodies being contained, tied in, buttoned in. Collared & Cuffed is on at @hugomichellgallery until May 16. Photograph Grant Hancock With thanks to @createsa_ for current fellowship support

‘Tied In’ is a blackwork embroidery currently part of Collared & Cuffed at @hugomichellgallery 🧵This collar (with a little flush sneaking out) is taken from a photograph of my German ancestors, from before the outbreak of World War II. In intimately stitching this tightly buttoned up chest I’ve been questioning what they were containing within their suits, how their bodies were rubbing up against these tied and buttoned in restraints, what they were negotiating, and how we are to grapple with their pasts to reflect upon our own times. I’ve also included a work in progress shot, from when I was working on this at @bundanontrust 🧵 Blackwork embroidery requires stitching elaborate patterns by counting and moving between the warp and weft of the linen. It is this repetitive meticulousness that creates time for reflection. Photograph by Grant Hancock. Collared & Cuffed is on at @hugomichellgallery until May 16 Thanks also to @createsa_ for the current support of a Fellowship.

Thanks to @nikitaholcombe and @artcollectormagazine for this fab spread showing off my new works currently showing in Collared & Cuffed at @hugomichellgallery 💜 on til May 16. photography by Grant Hancock

Collared & Cuffed opens next Thursday (April 16) at @hugomichellgallery 🌟 Exhibition runs from April 16-May 16 🌟 Excited to share these new works which arise from my ongoing investigations into German family letters I have been having translated from before and after World War 2. With thanks to @createsa_ for fellowship funding which is enabling this ongoing research. And a massive thanks to the best of galleries @hugomichellgallery 💜 Photo: Grant Hancock