Not for Ourselves but, for Each Other

Food, in its essence, is a universal language that brings people together. Not only does it provide sustenance in a physical sense but in my life it provides sustenance in the form of a friendship built around food. My thesis Not For Ourselves but, for Each Other explores the connection I have with one of my closest friends. When we first met, we bonded over a love of food and quickly fell into the habit of having dinner together every night. We like to say that we make food not just for ourselves but for each other. Exploring this relationship further, I turned to another form of sustenance in my artistic practice; weaving. This method sustains my current practice because weaving acts as another form of creating a bond. Just as we select each ingredient that goes into our meals, each strand of yarn in my weavings is intuitively chosen. Through the creation of colored stripes I also allude to my obsession with creating a repetitive pattern. Throughout each of the pairs, I reference the repetition of these meals while each individual weaving represents my friend and I.

Bio

Ella-Mae Spinali is a textile artist from New York. Growing up in an Italian-American and French household, she has often been inspired by the communities created around food. As food is a form of sustenance, her practice is sustained by the relationships she’s made surrounding food. Influenced by food in all forms, she takes color inspiration from the meals she grew up with and currently makes. As her interest in food grew, so did her interest in pattern. Striped patterns act as a way for her to express all of these interests throughout her bodies of work.