Jennifer Lord is an artist, researcher and t’ai chi chuan teacher in the Cheng Man-Ching lineage. They create 2.5D collages with upcycled and hand-embellished fabric in dialog with queer and feminist hand-making traditions. Themes of harmony, precarity, and sensuality express her devotion to the natural world in this time of human caused climate chaos. Lord was a 2024 Rough Gems curator at Union Hall and a recent resident at Mountain Water, a land restoration project that combines contemplative practice with creative expression.
Recent exhibitions include “Exploring Climate Change Through Art,” at NCAR, “Winter Blooms” at Alto Gallery, “Cryptic Perfume” at Razzle Dazzle, and “Rainbow Above the Ruins” at Dateline Gallery.
Lord received their BA from Naropa University and is currently an MFA candidate at SAIC. She is always reading several books concurrently. Born in Salt Lake City, they live, work, and teach in Boulder, Colorado.
![Jennifer Lord - Connecting Heaven and Earth [detail]](https://sites.saic.edu/gradshow2024/wp-content/uploads/sites/162/2024/05/lord_1.jpg)
Connecting Heaven and Earth [detail], 2023, Dyed cotton, dyed cord, synthetic fabric, tape, 120 x 56 x 20 in., photo by Claire A. Warden
Connecting Heaven and Earth, 2023, Dyed cotton, dyed cord, synthetic fabric, tape, 120 x 56 x 20 in., photo by Claire A. Warden
Installation view of "Jerky", 2022, at Razzle Dazzle, a Museum of Camouflage in Progress, Santa Fe, NM
Left: "Sunny Window," 2022, upcycled fabric 61 x 74 x 9 in. Right, "Enfold(ed) Prism," 2022, hand-painted heat transfer dye on upcycled synthetic fabric, dimensions variable (each piece approximately 96 x 48in.), feat. lampshades by Megan Macuen.
![Jennifer Lord - We Are Her, Future Weather [punk variation]](https://sites.saic.edu/gradshow2024/wp-content/uploads/sites/162/2024/05/lord_4.jpg)
We Are Her, Future Weather [punk variation], 2023, machine embroidery on hand-distressed cotton fabric with hand-embroidered embellishment, machine stitching, found plastic packaging, 36 x 23 x 1 in.
This piece combines machine embroidered text and hand distressed fabric with careful hand stitching, suggesting patterns of abuse/misuse and relations of care. What future weather will we gift to our children?
Unruly Edges (Hypnotic Denim-Destruction) Black Rose, 2022, mixed media textiles, 62 x 51 in.
Part of “The Bisexual Rose Garden” series. “Unruly Edges (Hypnotic Denim-Destruction) Black Rose,” is composed of various upcycled fabrics and many techniques including, hand-dye, monoprint, and heat-transfer, appliqué, reverse-appliqué, quilt-piecing, machine and hand sewing on found fabric.
My work utilizes patchwork or collage as a speculative technology. By examining women’s traditional art / craft practices through a queer and feminist framework, I explore how expanded techniques and concerns of materiality open up ideas of possibility. I’m interested in how meaning is embedded in material choices, processes, techniques and decisions. My work centers beauty, and by that I mean care, by which I also mean life / livingness / liveliness / lifeness.
I work predominantly with fiber based materials and installation. I collage and manipulate fabric to create 2D or 2.5D compositions, works in low relief that move off the wall and into space. The remnant piece is paired alongside embellished cloth created through time-intensive, hand-based processes. Through careful looking and combining, I bring multiple, sometimes disparate / surprising / unlikely things together into conversation. Color is a formal and structuring element. My work is aspirational and grounded. It seeks alternative meaning(s) and more just future(s).
Read my thesis: https://digitalcollections.saic.edu/node/90028