My love of Toile de Jouy fabric stems from my childhood through college and was woven into my children's nurseries. I found inspiration for this project in 2019 when I happened upon interior designer Shelia Bridges on Instagram, I was fascinated by her work and her creation of the Harlem Toile de Jouy.
For my final BFA work, I wanted to find a way to incorporate my own Toile de Jouy design and have it included in the exhibition without taking away from my printwork. Building upon concepts from St. Louis local Yvonne Osei's textile work recently shown at the Great River's Biennial, I set out to screenprint my fabric. Using my own etchings from The EXIT, to create an original Toile de Jouy pattern, I made my own skirt and matching handbag for the opening.
At the time, I was also studying relational aesthetics and interactive works and had become interested in the idea of the artist wearing the artwork and the artwork being the interaction itself. I was able to create that experience at the opening of The EXIT, the memory of my interactions is the documentation - aside from this photo and short excerpt, there is not documentation that the Toile De Jouy skirt was shown at The EXIT.
