Still Night Thoughts (bar rag), 2025
cotton bar rag, cotton thread, red tea
13 x 13 1/8”
based on the poem 靜夜思 (Quiet Night Thoughts) by the exiled chinese poet 李白 (Li Bai, 701-762).
my translation of the poem would read:
bright moonlight before my bed
at first i mistook it for winter frost
i raise my head to gaze at the bright moon
i lower my head and long for home
an attempt to put the memorized sounds of this poem into language and fiber, to think with the unstable ground in the poem itself, and the unstable weave of cheap bar rags. made with vintage indigo-stained thread and dollar-store bar rags made in china, which I have unhemmed. i left the rag in the embroidery hoop and left it in stale tea to set the stitching.
z. serena qiu is a textile & fiber artist 