Curatorial Projects > Don't Try This at Home (2007)

Stephani Martinez
Doily Cakes (detail), 2006-07
Doilies, plaster

Stephani Martinez has been collecting handmade doilies and hundreds of buttons for years. Inspired by memories of sugar-hardened doilies at her great aunt's house, she has focused on doilies and embroidery work as rejected symbols of femininity and domesticity as well as the labor of the women who made them. Her site-specific installations congregate a lavish amount of one-of-a kind pieces into visual testaments commenting upon rejected symbols of femininity and domesticity. She takes these items often relegated to the second-hand bin and reconfigures them into meditations of a time and culture that has passed.

Don't Try This at Home

September 17 - October 13, 2007
Intersection for the Arts
San Francisco, CA

Photo credit: Scott Chernis