Chores
Chores is an ongoing, collaborative body of work in Joy Mao’s textile art practice, featuring her hand-embroidered interventions on vintage garments.
Each piece bears a unique pattern of embroidery originally inspired by the unintentional yet beautiful splatters left on an old painting smock — embracing the rhythm of repair and rebirth, and celebrating the stains and scars left as evidence of hard work and deep care.
Collection 1 (No. 1-18) - sold out
Collection 2 ᐧ Season 1 (No. 19-28) - sold out
Collection 2 ᐧ Season 2 (No. 29-38) - available December 9, 2024 at 12pm EST
Collection 2 ᐧ Season 2
Collection 2 ᐧ Season 2 (No. 29-38) features ten new coats, each paired with a poem by Shaina Yang, and a patchwork lining by Lorraine Lum. Unique to this collection is the addition of 22 silver and blister pearl charms, made by Queens-based sculptor, Nicki Cherry. Each coat's embroidery incorporates one of Nicki's charms, which can be detached and worn as jewelry. Twelve additional charms stand alone, apart from the coats, waiting for their turn to become a necklace, an earring, or anything one's heart desires.
From December 7-8, join us in Greenpoint, Brooklyn for an exhibition weekend offering an in-depth look at every piece of the collection and highlighting the collaborative process between Joy and her collaborators — celebrating the magic that happens in the crossing of hands and minds, and urging us to go and hatch a scheme with friends.
Exhibition Open Hours
Saturday, 12/7 ᐧ 2-6pm EST
RSVP here
Artist Talk and Brunch
Sunday, 12/8 ᐧ 11:30am-1:30pm EST
RSVP here
Charms by Nicki Cherry
Artist Nicki Cherry made twenty-two tiny sculptures for this collection of Chores. Considering the closeness felt through a sense of “twoness”, the charms are made of an intimate combination of silver and blister pearls. Nicki hand-formed each using silver clay, resulting in a series of unique sculptures that record direct touch.
Learn more about this collaboration by reading a conversation between Joy and Nicki.
Collection 2 ᐧ Season 1
2023, No. 19-28
Made in collaboration with architect and poet Shaina Yang
and patternmaker Lorraine Lum
Season 1 of Collection 2 contained ten embroidered vintage chore coats with reconstructed linings, patchworked from antique indigo-dyed fabric scraps.
Each coat was embroidered in tandem with a corresponding poem written from a memory of the seaside — the seaside providing a consistent backdrop across shifting eras and emotions. Together, they recollect the ways in which our surroundings can witness, support, or even force changes happening on the inside.
Chores ᐧ Collection 1
Collection 1 ᐧ Seasons 1-3 (2021-2022, No. 1-18)
Made in collaboration with architect and poet Shaina Yang
Collection 1 was composed of eighteen hand-embroidered vintage coats. Six coats are released at a time at the closing harvest of three different seasons of labor — summer, fall, and winter.
The coats are also 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.
03 The Drink - Words by Shaina Yang
