Chores
Chores is a collection of hand-embroidered vintage coats—an ongoing body of work made in collaboration with Joy's childhood friend, Shaina Yang.
Edition 1 (No. 1-18) were made across three seasons of labor:
Summer ᐧ September 2021
Fall ᐧ November 2021
Spring ᐧ April 2022
Edition 2 begins Fall 2022.
Launches announced on Instagram.
Each coat bears a unique pattern of embroidery inspired by the unintentional yet beautiful splatters left on an old painting smock.
The stitching embraces the rhythm of repair and rebirth, by embodying stains and scars left as evidence of hard work and deep care.
The coats are each paired with an original poem written by Joy’s childhood friend, Shaina Yang.
Created in the same room across a series of joint working sessions, the shared energy of this tandem process allowed coat to inspire poem to inspire coat once again.
Each poem is a meditation on shared themes of care, ritual, and remnant - but also a product of love and collaboration between two old friends.
Words by Shaina Yang
Together, we celebrate practice as the unsung mode of daily creation—the intentional efforts we make choice after choice to perform through active care even when those efforts are difficult, messy, or unseen.
We embrace the spirit, practice, and product of collaboration in defiance of the loneliness ascribed to chores. We ultimately ground ourselves in the space of earnest labor—centering the overlooked, and the beauty of the act itself.