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Deborah Valoma
Writing tools were gendered for centuries
in Western culture: needle and thread pro-
moted for women, paper and ink reserved
for men. Women stitched their stories—
sometimes citing platitudes and render-
ing letters of the alphabet, at other times
chronicling experiences of deprivation
and degradation. Deborah Valoma’s Little
White Lies (Reading Between the Lines)
is a quiet disruption of those conventions;
thread is used not to reveal, but to conceal.
Truths whispered in ink are hidden un-
der crosshatched embellishments, stitched
down by 18,432 pricks of the needle.
31dv Little White Lies
embroidered rayon thread, cotton canvas
13.75” x 13.75” x 2”, 2020
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