“I’ll Pick Up Where You Left Off,” 2020. Embroidery thread on found unfinished cross stitch works. 24.5”x48,” 11”x18,” and 17”x51.”
Continuing my interest in Jane’s online persona and the secrets and stories it preserves, I lifted three photographs of inconspicuous moments — a new car, a storm cloud rolling in, trying on a jacket before a trip — off her Facebook page and rendered them in the empty spaces of three unfinished cross stitch works purchased secondhand. I wonder who the (most likely) women were who began these projects and left them incomplete. I consider all of us — me, Jane, these anonymous three — collaborators in the “finished” pieces.
The breadcrumb trail of Internet usage Jane has left behind her, even as her memory fades, is full of details that tempt me into feeling like I really know her, but I’m left with more questions than answers. As I break down her photograph into pixels and reconstruct it by hand, am I preserving the moment in crystalline structure or blurring it beyond recognition? By making work about this stranger, am I honoring her legacy or violating her privacy? And, zooming out on the issue: as these breadcrumb trails grow in volume with social media, genealogy websites, and user data aggregation, how are they coming to shape who we are and how we will be remembered?
Ultimately, I think the drive to “complete” these unfinished cross stitch pieces, or “remember” Jane’s memories for her, is my response to the universal fear of forgetting and being forgotten. Peering into the void, I cling to breadcrumbs. Whether I’m truly saving them from floating into oblivion, as I feel I am in the moment, or constructing false architectures in which to store my fears, I don’t know. But doing it helps.