On Grace, Glory, and Fake Gold: A Queer Tangent in Tapestry

Abstract

In this writing, I use the tangent as a queer methodology to craft an ontology of tapestry. Art historical anecdotes, familial immigrant stories, and queer declarations of faith are interwoven tangents that attempt, perhaps, to weave a tapestry of their own. Through this, I focus on my own studio production and engage the tangential positionality of weaving to consider tapestry as a form that mirrors the Catholic disavowal of queer people. The Magnificat tapestries discussed remediate Italian Renaissance paintings of the Madonna and Child as Jacquard woven tapestries. Appropriation, mutation, and decadence are manifested in these tapestries, and further examined through ethnic legacies and queer temporalities. Narratives of immigrant Marian devotion are met with musings on drag to consider their overlap and opposition. Throughout this writing I engage queerness, ethnicity, and the sacred to imagine, and offer, a queer vision of grace.