Toil by Ruth Bryant

Toil is part of a series of work that explores narrativity through paper weaving, utilizing this technique as a metaphor for storytelling. The text pops out from the page like dropped threads in a tapestry. With this book, I wanted to talk about the stories we choose for ourselves, how we tell them, and how cultural narratives come into play with the personal. As the reader progresses through the book, the sumi ink blooms gray and black, taking up more and more space in the weaving. In this way, and through the progression of the text down the page, I illustrate how ignoring difficult narratives can affect our psyches. Toil's emphasis is on the things left unsaid-or those stories for which words are inadequate.