Creative Quarantine: Joyce Watkins King

Three facemasks made from brightly, patterned fabric and elastic. — Face Mask Collaborative Project

A print of a dress for the Together Raleigh bus shelter project. — Work for the City of Raleigh bus shelter project

A drawing and in progress fabric piece for a Priest stole by Joyce Watkins King — Priest stole in progress

From Joyce Watkins King -

Quarantine has reordered my creative schedule. I am unable to work on projects that I had planned to during this time (one required working in a public space), but others have taken their place. The past three weeks I have been dividing my time between sewing masks and working on two arts commissions.

I have headed up a team of 16 people that have now made well over 1000 masks for the women's prison, the Masonic children's home, homeless people, Meals on Wheels volunteers, and high-risk family and friends.

The two art commissions include a priest's stole, made from her mother's antique wedding dress. She plans to wear it when she officiates a wedding later in the summer for her sister and her future brother-in-law. And she will continue to wear it for future weddings. This project falls in line with the focus of my textile work, honoring time and labor that goes into making special garments that pass down through the generations--the opposite of our society's current trend toward "disposable" fast fashion.

The third project, supported by the City of Raleigh, is art for a bus shelter that will be realized later in the summer. My design will feature some of my re-purposed mixed-media garment prints. I have re-imagined long vests as trees for the spring/summer and fall/winter seasons.