A Dress for Cowboy Cruising is a piece relating to sexuality, gender, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This project is about the process of completing a garment and the concept behind it, and not necessarily about achieving a comfortable or wearable textile.
Two of the images that are embroidered onto the dress are taken from a 1978 "flashback" spread in the September 1998 issue of HONCHO, a pornographic magazine. It is a meditation on the tragedy of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the LGBTQIA+ community, and how the enormous loss of an entire generation of young, creative and inspiring individuals has affected the arts community as a whole. The embroidered blue rose on the lapel signifies the unattainable (open to the viewer’s interpretation).
Although also tragic in its own right, the current COVID-19 pandemic pales in comparison and is not nearly as stigmatized. This piece was created on the cusp of the corona outbreak and so the face mask has been incorporated to reflect that. The garment itself is also a contemplation on gender expectations and femininity in a time when we finally seem to have the language and ability to evolve our assumptions around sexuality and gender.
The fabric used was recycled from two very large wall-hangings that were made from 2013-2015. It is an organza modified in a process of "inkjet transfer" where a printed digital collage of photographs taken in New York, California, and New Mexico in 2013 was glued to the fabric and the paper later burnished off. The abstracted background is busy and contains imagery of roses, dead animals, and street art. The garment construction was done by machine and by hand, and was made to fit the artist.
