Strange Companions

Strange Companions is a collaboration with Galen Beebe. Together, we create wearable fiber art through an improvisational collaborative process akin to creating an exquisite corpse. One of us crochets or knits the opening phrase and then passes the work off to the other. We build upon each other’s creations, letting the work inform our next steps. We work with scrap and remnant materials as much as possible.

The resulting piece grows around our bodies like a barnacle. It has its own shape, but it can also mold to fit ours. It is bright and soft, but it is also protective, a distraction from the wearer’s own form. Strange Companions incorporates themes surrounding queerness and queer bodies, self presentation and preservation, introversion and desire.