Loo presents: Duty
Photography by Judith Brotman and embroidery by Sandra Grauel
October 4-November 29, 2014

No one is allowed to say anything bad about your mother. It’s your responsibility to take care of her when she can’t.

Judith Brotman’s art production, in large part, has incorporated embroidery. But she’s not doing that right now. She’s securing other knots before they’re not.

Sandra Grauel has also spent countless hours stitching. “Jeffrey doesn’t think my cross stitches are art.” I’ve been trying to live that one down ever since it was inexplicably pronounced in public amongst strangers. Shame on top of shame.

Judith’s photograph might be mistaken as a simple domestic snapshot but there is much more going on there. She is crafting this scene with her mother. They are posing for the record. They are there because of obligation and circumstance.

Sandra wants you to know upfront, she is not an artist. Her contribution wasn’t color and composition. It was sorting and counting and attention. Hours, days, years of attention.

In a barrage of disposable images these were selected because we can’t figure them out. And we are the products of them. And we are compelled by them.