Welcome Home: A Sweet And Sour Quilt Installation at the AS220 Reading Room Gallery
Artist Brooke Erin Goldstein has always wanted to quilt an entire room ever since she learned sewing and quilting at the age of 9. In her studio practice she thinks about the work in terms of collections. Considering the presentation is a natural part of her making process. Goldstein does't work piece by piece, rather she does things all at once. That is what is cool about installation, you have your way with the viewer. You are literally inviting people into your world. There is something exciting about that to Goldstein, more so than looking at a drawing. Welcome Home: a Sweet and Sour Quilt Installation is an experience.
In this installation Goldstein wants to be honest about childhood, pleasure and pain, and being vulnerable. The feeling of having all that intrigue and wonder with things being so exciting but also scary and dark at the same time. As a child you have to rely on people, even if it is not the people you would choose. In childhood everything is new and there are all these possibilities, but it is also really painful and dark, you don't have any control. In Welcome Home I want to share that experience, make it vivid for the audience. At some level, that is what it must be like for everybody, at least part of the time.
*This installation was the first quilted room I ever made. It was presented in September of 2014 at the AS220 Reading Room off of the Project Space Gallery.
**Photos by Spike Stone, Mara Trachtenberg and myself.
