PhD Candidate
Cornell University
Department of Communication
Beach Hat
Artist: Ria Gualano
Affiliation: Student
Medium: Upcycled denim, hospital gown, wire
Artist Description
Beach Hat is a textile-based diary entry comprised of hospital gown and upcycled denim. The reimagined materials signify the merging of Crohn’s Disease into my daily life. They reflect on consequential memories that weave in and out of my present experiences, triggered by certain spaces, sounds, objects, and emotions. The piece began as a recreation of a memory anchored in a specific textile: the floppy hat that shielded my eyes from the sun while I endured waves of pain on a beach. Then, I cut, merged, and sewed, refining certain seams and letting other jagged stitches remain bold. The process of creation reconciled parts of myself that healed invisibly with those immortalized in visible scars. Still other emotional scars I left raw, exposed to the viewer, such as the inverted seams around the hat’s crown. I invite viewers to physically trace the scars sewn into the hat and consider the temporality of their own, visible and invisible, healed and ever-negotiating.
Visual Description of Piece
A patchwork floppy hat comprised of denim squares, inverted seams and scar-like trails of thread. It tells a story about memories of chronic illness intermingling with the everyday as it moves from a denim-only top to mostly hospital gown underneath the brim.
Notes from the art creation process
A selfie of Ria, a woman with long dark brown hair, lying on a beach. She wears a pink dress with flowers, a blue straw hat, and a serious expression. A blue towel in sand forms the background beneath her.
A self-portrait of Ria, a woman with long dark brown hair, wearing her patchwork denim and hospital gown hat. She tips the brim out of her eyes with one hand, staring into the camera with a serious expression.
Materials from the creation process of Beach Hat, including inverted seams sewn together to form rectangular panels, a larger half-circle and smaller circle of denim and hospital gown patches overlayed onto each other, a pink cutting board and a sewing machine. A pile of denim jeans and hospital gowns sits on the floor below.
The brim of Beach Hat before it has been fitted to the pattern, sitting on the carpet beside the circular pattern paper.
Patches of denim in different shades layered over each other during the hat creation process, sitting atop the pink cutting board and beside the sewing machine.
The legs of nine pairs of denim jeans fanned out over each other from dark to light shades.
