"My Birth" is a woven reproduction of Frida Kahlo's "My Birth", a painting in which she gives birth to herself. Through the process of reproducing this image as a multi-weft woven cloth, the image has become stretched, distorted, and almost unrecognizable. This amplifies the unsettling feelings of discomfort prevalent in the original work. Both the media of the woven cloth as well as the content of the painting comment on the physical labor endured by female bodies. A handwoven cloth is intrinsically tied to a history of female labor. Weaving is a laborious and physically taxing process that is un and underappreciated like many things associated with women, including birth and motherhood. This piece was woven in a single continuous twelve-hour session in which I did not leave the room or take a break. The process of weaving this cloth can be compared to the image of Frida giving birth to herself. In this process of creating, one enters a separate physical and mental state in which all that seems to exist is one's own body and what is being created. This process of creation is characterized by pain and discomfort.
