Merino wool, silk, cedar bark, fox fur, Tencel bow. Chilkat shawl. 2024. 15 × 44 × .25 in.

I dreamed of White Spider in the later hours of a summer morning. She was fluffy and pure white like the fox fur that had recently arrived in the mail for me the previous week. Her many glossy eyes matched her contrasting furry black joints that recalled the 80s shoulder pads of all my favorite vintage dresses. I was partially awake, which is why I remember the warmth of the sun trying to pull the blanket off of me as I resisted opening my eyes. I needed to stay with Her. She sat on my bed and spoke telepathically, but I was aware — in the dream — that I couldn’t receive the transmission. I didn’t know how to listen. So I woke up and began weaving her, and she taught me through weaving.

I began this weaving in August ‘23 and finished in April ’24. During that time we were offered the opportunity to see the horrors of greed. It’s so tempting and sometimes necessary to look away; we have the privilege to do so. The heartbreak still seeps outside of social media, which I swore off for months, and into daily operations where I realize how many people that I associate with daily are still buying the narrative that this is about God or freedom in some way. This war is not about anything but profit. All these wars; the ones that don’t make it into peoples’ Instagram stories — but are still making American investors and billionaires richer. The repeated atrocities of genocide are testimonies to the inevitable failure of colonialism and capitalism.

Fear of loss fosters greed; but when we are held by our communities, know our selves and our places and our land — truth of connection overwhelms the notion of scarcity. But this system is fueled by fear of loss. Fear that we are or will become alone.

Spider Woman feels it all. Her threads are an extension of a realm that came before her and reach into those beyond, in a meditation that allows her to move with great care, patience, precision, and tenderness.

May the women who wear her be emboldened with Spider’s compassion for all beings, even — and especially — those who cannot hear or see the way.

Modeled here on the vibrant, silly, talented, tapped-in, fierce (Tsaagweidí-style), and all-around beautiful Rachel Martin.

Twined for and currently living to dance and sway in the Gochman Family Collection.