It never goes away

"to be known the way you should is to put yourself through hell"

As the new month approaches, I tend to spiral about what to write about. The subject usually reveals itself by way of whatever is weighing on me the most. To sing the same tune as last month, the open wound is still a familial one. As in familiar, and family-related. Predictable. Like hearing a song you’ve heard your entire life and knowing every word before it starts playing. It never really goes away.

I’ve had this idea for this wall hanging in my head for almost a year now. One of my favorite artists, Ethel Cain, toured her new album and came through Oregon last summer. I was stuck on her song “Nettles” and two weeks deep into listening to the album on repeat, I wanted to honor her music somehow and incorporate it into my art.

The year before, I had made a house block quilt pattern and happened to come into some camouflage fabric. The colors reminded me of the deep, swampy Alabama landscape, the well her music seems to draw from. Her album Preacher’s Daughter carries this haunting atmosphere, and the house block could just as easily represent a church or her song “House in Nebraska.” It all wove together and made sense to me.

So I made a camo house quilt block and added it to a gray crewneck. I then posted online asking if anyone knew how I could get it to her? Most people said the same thing: throw it on stage.

So that became the plan.

I anxiously held onto the crewneck through the entire set, trying to get as close to the front as possible. People elbowed me. Gave me dirty looks as I squeezed between sweaty bodies while the crowd swayed to one of the final songs of the night “Crush.”

Someone threw a beanie onto the stage and Hayden (Ethel) put it on.

I thought… this is my chance.

My heart was racing as I launched the crewneck toward the stage. When you’re packed like sardines with hundreds of people, there’s not much room to generate momentum. I crouched down and threw my whole body upward, hoping to land it somewhere in her line of sight.