Chrysalis metamorphosis.

It’s about home. memory. veils.

I found the words of poets. I chose fragments.

my sensibilities. their words. organza mist.

I was born in Brooklyn, New York. I was strolled through Prospect Park in a navy blue baby carriage.

Now, I work on a big table in the studio ironing on photographs and text. I imagine an immigrant woman working on the lower east side of New York City, pressing. sweating. laboring. My grandfather came through Ellis Island from Italy in 1902.

stitching. stitching. stitching. hand stitching the organza panels. attentive. reverie. "woman's work".

memory. remembering... our selective subconscious.

other people's evocations become mine. they define my soul. Evoking an image. you can smell it. taste it.

it's about warmth. womb. cradle. carriage.

it's about the veil. elusive. It's about the window. the gaze.

I remember picking Queen Anne's Lace at my grandparents' farm. the trill of a red-winged blackbird. walking up a dirt road, stones filling my small pockets.

-Jo Ann Fleischhauer 2003