30 Coats

This project is part of my work as the collaborative Diaz Lewis

We embarked upon a project to re-create with drier lint the 17th Century doublets believed to best represent the coats traded by early English settlers for the treacherous “purchase” of the land of what today is Connecticut, from the Wangunk tribe, in 1681. The lint used to make these sculptures was collected from various laundromats near Haddam, CT and the surrounding areas. Within each coat, skin cells, hair, dust and textile fibers from diverse sources blend together in a singular object. The colors that the lint fibers retained come from the clothes that were washed and dried by the people who today live in this land which in the past belonged to the Wangunk.