I have been weaving and giving away wool blankets since early 2007 (32 blankets). It started as an attempt to create an example of a kind of "pure, free" commodity, which is still a part of my artistic goal. This type of object would be created through a production process pleasurable to the laborer, and it would be distributed according to self-assessed need. So to explore how people gauged their own need I gave out the first blankets in piles, unaccompanied, with a sign that read: "If you need a blanket to keep you warm, you can have one of these. I wove them out of wool that was given to me" For I had.
Those versions of the project were interesting to me for two reasons: I was wearing down my own tendency to hoard the product of my labor, to take pleasure in the feeling that I worked for another's warmth and let that eclipse my fetishization of the objects; And as people took blankets offered in galleries at openings and talked to me about it later, for the first times I took pride in the beauty of them as aesthetic objects, rather than purely functional ones, but they also expressed concern that they had taken the blankets, that I would somehow judge them, and it seemed difficult for them to accept that I thought no person deserved them more than any other. Actually I loved when the transaction became personal like that and formed a sort of bond through this object.
And that's what led me to offer blankets to my friends and colleagues, people who stood out in my mind. They can accept the offer without guilt and appreciate the warmth and beauty of my handicraft in a way I find super-satisfying. I get way more than a blanket in this exchange. I'll continue to weave and give blankets throughout my life, varying distribution and production methodologies and accepting contributions in any form: theoretical, material, or if you want to weave some cloth yourself call me and I'll send you a cardboard loom.