For centuries, women have used crafts as a means of community building. From quilting bees to knitting circles, these gatherings present an opportunity to create functional objects and exist as safe spaces allowing members to speak their truths no matter how subversive.

In her multidisciplinary practice, Meghan Udell draws on the long association between women and the craft tradition as a means of tackling gender issues. Udell most commonly works in fiber — a modality regarded foremost as functional — but she explores the medium in conjunction with steganography to create a form of ciphered storytelling.

It's no coincidence that language around fiber— Slinging Yarn —has been used as an idiom for the narrative tradition. Like oral and written storytelling, Fibers exist as an index of fragmented parts, created by a non-continuous collective of labor, responsible for breaking apart the old to reconstruct the new. The index of the past lingers in the fiber to be integrated with the traumas of today, a dichotomy Udell explores by playing with visual representations of tension.

Through her soft sculptures, knitted morse code, and embroidered nightmares, Udell subverts the traditional idea of comfort, using fiber to reveal instead of conceal.