tax tufting …
an ongoing project.
When I looked at Dad’s cigarette packs, I noticed a tiny little sticker on the cellophane at the bottom of each one. OHIO / 20 / some sort of number. I looked at an empty pack of my partner’s cigarettes. They also had a sticker, but it was different. I scanned them both and printed them out large.
The stickers were tobacco tax stamps, different because the cigarettes were purchased in different states. I put the 2’ x 2’ prints on the door of my studio. I was told the images looked like they were tufted. I had no idea what tufting was but very quickly went down the rabbit hole of tobacco tax codes, what they look like, how they’re different, how to get them (because there is no database that I could find online) and how to create tufted rugs using a tufting gun.
I put out a call to anyone I knew, and complete strangers, asking them to send me empty packs of cigarettes so I could scan in the tax codes as source material for the tufted rugs I planned to make. Fun fact, there are only 48 states that require tobacco tax stamps, something I learned after having two people try to buy cigarettes in North Carolina for me (a state that doesn’t have the stamp).
*The rugs from the states my dad never visited are wrapped in cellophane, and placed on shelves on the wall, because these are places he will never get to visit, experiences he will never get to have.
*Each day in the gallery the rugs were moved, forcing you to move around the space differently, to interact with the works in new ways.
*Nothing stops viewers from walking on the rugs, so they are physically changed throughout the exhibition.
These rugs were a bright, time-consuming place to put my focus when the grief got too hard. They are 2’ x 2’ colorful little reminders that it’s okay to find joy amidst grief, that people will show up for you when they can (even if they don’t know you), and that as time passes our understanding and recollection of the past will continue to evolve and change.