Lise Melhorn-Boe
Kingston, Ontario
www.lisemelhornboe.ca

House Guest
2024
Textiles and wood, screen-printed
9″ X 8″ X 19″

Artist Statement

Elizabeth Bishop’s funny, yet poignant poem “House Guest” is about a depressed seamstress. When questioned, she finally reveals that she would rather be a nun. The dressmaker’s Judy (dummy) is layered with five garments—all based on clothing from the 1960s, as that was the decade in which the poem was written. The first coat was made from fabric from a suit of my mother-in-laws, which she wore in the 1960s. The second coat is a copy of a coat which was worn by Queen Elizabeth II. Removing each of the first four garments reveals a stanza or two screen-printed inside the clothing. The final verse is printed on the front of a 1960’s-era shorter nun’s habit. (The colophon is on the back.)

The poem is used with permission from Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, taken from The Complete Poems 1927-1979.

The photos show five copies of the edition of 6.

I learned to sew as a child and have often used textiles in my feminist artist’s books over the past forty plus years of my bookmaking career. House Guest is the most recent book in a series in which I have been exploring various forms of needlework, using, as text, poetry which explores topics related to sewing, knitting, embroidery etc. as well as the tools used. In the past, I have always chosen a book structure that enhances and enlivens the text or subject matter I am exploring, but this recent work is allowing me to explore the use of textiles as a subject themselves. I am having a great time translating book structures which I have used in the past in paper (like pop-ups and flag books) but making them work in fabric. Sometimes this is a challenge as most textiles are not as stiff as paper. However, in House Guest, the fabric is treated as fabric—I sewed and stuffed the dressmaker’s Judys, then designed and sewed the clothing. The stands were made from pine newel posts and dowel.