Pamela Landau Connolly

The photo objects of Columbus Drive use vintage potholder looms, family photographs, archival canvas, and cotton thread to retell my childhood in suburban New Jersey during the 1960s and 70s. My process begins by scanning 3” square snapshots and reprinting them digitally on canvas. I cut the enlarged photos into 1/4” strips, warp the loom with color threads, and weave them back together. The finished piece includes both loom and woven image forming a 3-dimensional photo object.

While working on an earlier project exploring 1960’s tin dollhouses, I began thinking of other toys used to prepare girls for their future as housewives. I remembered the potholder loom I, and many others played with and loved. At this time, I was also scanning photos from my mother’s albums to create an archive. The square pictures and the square loom seemed to connect one to the other, and the idea emerged to combine them.

As Lilian Monk Rösing writes in her essay, Weaving Time, “In ancient Greek, a loom is called ‘histos’; to weave is to tell a story.” I’m interested in unraveling the unspoken details of my childhood and re-telling the story of our family from the vantage point of today. Cutting apart photographs and reassembling them is a repetitive practice. As I create patterns with colored thread and maneuver the canvas under and over, the image is slowly revealed. In these moments, I travel back and forth in time, looking for clues to unravel the past.

Website pamconnollyphoto.com