Across frameworks devised from vintage potholder looms, Hudson Valley-based artist Pam Connolly weaves personal family narratives and explores notions of home. “I grew up in the 1960s in a typical, post-war suburban neighborhood in New Jersey,” she says. “My parents owned a furniture store that was at the center of our family’s universe—everything revolved around it.”
As a child, Connolly roamed the store’s maze of showrooms, immersing herself in the patterns and objects. These curated, aspirational spaces instilled a fascination with make-believe and our surroundings that has accompanied her in her lens-based career for the past three decades.
Columbus Drive, a series of woven family snapshots, channels Connolly’s interest in the relationship between the imaginary and the real, especially through the theme of domestic spaces and family stories. Her work has previously included photographs of tin dollhouses and family portraits that explore the idealized American dream and childhood memories.
In the Columbus Drive pieces, Connolly reproduces family snapshots on canvas, which she then cuts into quarter-inch strips and weaves with colored fiber on the metal potholder looms. These vintage objects harken back to the early- to mid-20th-century, when they were conceived as a way for sock manufacturers to not only use but also market their textile scraps. Especially during the Depression era and throughout the midcentury, the tiny kits became incredibly popular.
“In this body of work, I unravel the unspoken details of childhood and re-tell the story from a new vantage point,” Connolly says. “By creating patterns with colored thread and maneuvering the canvas under and over…a new image and vision is slowly revealed.” Through cutting up and reassembling these immanently personal images, the artist meditates on the era of the 1960s as much as her own recollections and family history.
See more of the artist’s work on Instagram, where you can also explore her project called Landau Gallery, a 1:12-scale contemporary art space.
