About

I carried a security blanket as a little kid. It was a pale, bluish-green with a satiny binding across the top, which I sucked on. I realized years later why the smell of mildew was comforting to me. When I was 4, my family moved to Palo Alto for my father’s sabbatical year. My mom worried that if I lost my blanket it would scar me for life. So, with my permission, she cut it into 8 pieces and meted them out to me during the course of the year. I think I consumed the whole blanket. 

Cloth carries associations of comfort, security, warmth, not just for me, but historically. For centuries, cloth was central in the lives of women: spinning, weaving, sewing, darning, mending, quilting, swaddling, shrouding. I am drawn to its histories and humanity, its evocative traces of age and use.

In college, I began to collect antique cloth -- small pieces, well-used and well-loved, from far and wide. For almost as long, I have been hand-sewing select pieces into new contexts. Throughout my relationship with cloth, I navigate the roles of collecting, curating, and creating. These are sometimes antithetical. There are tattered pieces that I’ve kept intact for years, promising myself I’d mend them back to their original state, later to accept that a new life in a new context is the best way to enjoy and share them. There are old pieces too significant or exquisite to alter; some remain untouched, others I use in a way that’s reversible, so at any time, they may reclaim their autonomy.

I compose until I am compelled to stitch. I often aim for ambiguity regarding what’s old, new, mended, untouched, manipulated, or created. I use cloth for its meaning as much as its formal or tactile qualities. All come into play in the work, and in the play.

All work is for sale unless noted in private collection. Please contact me at jlcohen925@gmail.com for pricing.