Tension 01
The cocoon makers and their stories
1 Anonymous
I'm not a crier, and it's something I regret. I know our proclivities come to us in fractured ways, and can't be neatly traced back to primal causes. But I sometimes think I can connect this little branch of my own private toxic masculinity to one night in 1987. It's funny how memory works. What I remember most was the smell of my sister's hairspray as she tidied my hair. And I remember the hairbrush I was holding. I was twelve then. I'm 51 now, and even today I can't smell hairspray without remembering. And yet it was such a small thing. I'm certain not one person in my family has any memory of it at all. Anyway, I cried. And again, funny how memory works. I have no recollection of what made me cry. Not even the slightest hint, although in the moment it must have been so much more important than the brush. Still, I just remember that hairbrush, and my sister's hairspray. And I remember how angry my father was that I had started crying. I'm sure he belittled me because that's what he does. But the thing I remember most about his response was this: he said my face would be red and blotchy. He said everyone would know I had been crying. He said he didn't want the friends who were about to arrive to think he his son was a baby. He kept rubbing and rubbing to make my tears go away until my mother took over with a washcloth. “Here, let me.” It's a small thing, but the sad truth is I believed him. I mean I hated him in the moment, but I also hated myself. For being a baby. For being a boy who cries. And for being an embarassment to the people around me. I think I resolved that night in some unpremeditated and preconscious way that I would grow up. That I would not cry again. I read an article once about the wide gender gap in crying. Young women cry, on average it said, once a week. And older men, only every few months. What struck me about this reporting was not the stark contrast between men and women, but between humans and me. I can count, exactly, the times I've cried since that night when I was 12 years old — or at least since around that age. I remember each of them. My number is four. Four real cries in 40 years. Between once a week and once a decade, is there some precise point where I stop being a person? My only comfort is that the thing that has made me cry, in every instance, is rooted in empathy not hurt, which suggests, perhaps, that feeling the pain of others is a more difficult thing to suppress than feeling your own pain. I like that idea. Of course apropos to this exhibit, my wife has so often taken the weight of this dysfunction quietly onto herself. She has given me space, always, and withheld judgement. I've thought about this a lot in more recent years. I know what it feels like to cry. I even know, vividly, like all people, what it feels like to need to cry. But I don't know how to cry, and I wish I could find a way out of it. Or perhaps I should say I wish I could find a way back to it, back to what I knew so easily as a child. I've brought for you a single pin from a hairbrush of the type I was holding in that moment.
2 Anonymous
narrative withheld by maker request
3 Anonymous
My object is a big fake diamond on a black, woven leather band—two opposites ... like my sister, who gave it so me. I have not spoke to her in 1 1/2 years because she is an emotional black hole. Her relationships are toxic and manipulative. I do not feel "safe" with her. So hard to decide whether to talk to her.
4 Heidi Bambauer
As I wrap and stitch a length of chain inside the cocoon, I reflect on my role as the family's connector. The chain symbolizes the responsibility I feel to keep everyone informed, engaged, and connected. Each link represents a family member - close or extended - forming a network of relationships that I often feel responsible for maintaining. As an introvert, I question whether I am the right person for this role. I wonder if I am the "weakest link," and whether gaps in communication have affected my children's closeness with each other, limited shared family experiences, or left my mother's needs unmet as she lives with Alzheimer's. The chain embodies the weight of these concerns and the emotional burden of trying to hold everyone together. This work explores the tension between obligation and limitation, connection and isolation. It reflects my struggle to accept that I cannot meet everyone's needs while balancing my own nature with the social expectations and dynamics of family life.
5 Kathy Shimpock
It's a list of "To Do" things I had to manage for my family. Lists of things I had to remember for my daughters, wasbun & my father when he moved in. It's my ball, tangled and haphazard. Heaven forbid you'd forget a stitch or something on the list.
6 Mamie Coffey
Living with depression is a level of emotional labor on top of regular emotional labor. It makes my perceptions of reality and my own emotions untrustworthy. It is a messy tangle that unravels at times and sometimes is wound so tightly that everything halts.
7 Mary Delmege
The object in the cocoon is a small thrift store pendant given to me by an artist with whom I lived for ten years from my early twenties to my early thirties. During that time, I was a single mom, working full time and going to school and mostly supporting our household. Our
relationship eventually ended because he wanted to have children. His idea was that I would have one or two more children and also work to support our family while he focused on making art and staying home with the children. I couldn't agree to this plan because I know that I'd never be able to become my own person in the life he was imagining. All of my energy would go to supporting him emotionally and financially at the cost of my own development. Among other things, I wanted to create art of my own. Throughout my childhood I gravitated to art and focused intensely on it in high school. A few times during those years with him, I would start drawing or painting and he would tell me "You are not an artist. If you were a real artist, you would be making art full time."
Today, I make ceramic sculptures and vessels that I believe qualify as art, but his voice remains inside my head.
8 Stephannie Quick
Women are hunted. We are taught or learn to: Carry our keys as weapons. Watch what we wear as to not send signals that might be interpreted incorrectly or distract. Not leave our girlfriends behind but travel together. Cover our beverages and never drink from a glass we’ve left unattended. Not smile back too much as it will invite unwanted engagement but don’t smile too little as it will offend him. Fill your gas tank before it gets dark. Carry pepper spray or other protection device when we go out for a run. Not open your front door for anyone you’re not expecting. We are aware that: The man we marry is the person most likely to kill us There exists a website that teaches men to drug and rape their wives/girlfriends and rape other men’s drugged wives/girlfriends Our president was a known sex offender and accused or raping children when he was elected Men say they want to protect women…but who are they protecting us from? Men. Men say they want to protect women but won’t even speak up when other men are demeaning or verbally abusing women. For years rape kits have sat on shelves instead of being used to catch rapists We are tired of hearing, ‘Not all men’ and we still choose the bear.
9 Anonymous
"Pins and Needles" can be defined as "an uncomfortable, tingling or prickling sensation often caused by temporary pressure on a nerve." I've experienced that sensation in my body, when a muscle nerve in my body "goes to sleep." But I've also experienced that sensation in my spirit, when a sensory nerve is triggered because my words, ideas, or perspectives are dismissed due to my gender. Dismissals are little pins that jab and prick at me, inflicting injury, creating spiritual wounds that need mending. Needles are then called upon to repair the damage and stitch with colorful thread my spirit back together.