Galaxie and Underwood is a series of artworks, begun in 2020, that translate weavers’ draft notations into small patterned works on paper. I use the textile code as a printed semaphore, allowing its intrinsic order to direct my way into a drawing. With no weaving experience, I understand these textile codes as a cryptic language. In response, my drawings become a cipher, a way back into this information.

I often use found materials such as antique papers - surfaces that hold an inherent intimacy; a history of being held by many hands. I employ the structure of the grid through the use of different approaches and tools––most recently the typewriter whose primary movements of up and down and left to right are similar to the warp and weft in weaving––a rigid yet welcome constraint. The typewriter becomes both a mechanical loom and a printmaking tool; typographic symbols function as pattern generators. On top of these typewritten marks, I draw with pen and ink, creating an additional layer that reference stitches or strands of thread. These works give homage to the slow pace and unpredictable rhythm––the perfection and imperfection––of both the analog machine and the object made by hand.

-Victoria Burge