Rebecca McGee Tuck
Once Upon A Time: Pandemic House, 2020
materials collected from within my home during the stay at home order, steel, paint 82" x 58" x 74"
On March 15 we found out that our studios would close because of Covid-19. We had one day to go in and collect what we needed, but for how long---no one knew. I grabbed my sewing machine, various fabrics, yarns, wires, glue and other collage materials. My dining room table became my pandemic studio. It was smaller, in full view of my family, and it lacked the freedom to be as messy as I needed to be! As a found object artist, the virus made me have to rethink the objects that would inspire me. I started collecting from within my house, sewing collages with whatever I could find. The drive to keep working and my need to visually journal what was going on around me, is how the Pandemic House came to be.
Rebecca McGee Tuck
Tabernacle of Trappings, 2021
vintage dress, meaningful cuttings of textiles sent through the mail during quarantine, wood, wire. 2021 Rebecca McGee Tuck 60" x 48" x 6"
Over the course of the stay at home order and throughout the Pandemic, I asked friends, family and social media acquaintances to send me cutting of important textiles. I did this in an effort to keep in touch with people and to feel close to people who I would not see until a year later because of the virus. People sent me cuttings of baby blankets, wedding dresses, Boston Marathon finish line cover ups and other much loved fabric ephemera. The finished piece is a memory shrine to hold me over until we meet again.
