Rachel Ivy Clarke (New York)

See What I Did There

Embroidery
Designed and stitched by Rachel Ivy Clarke

“When people talk about the value of libraries, they tend to think of books and other materials. But those resources don’t magically appear and organize themselves. It takes a huge amount of work to collect, describe and organize those resources so they can be available for use–immensely valuable labor that often goes unseen, unrecognized, and unappreciated.”

Rachel would like to thank: Lou Cabeen for the inspiration, Margo Burns for the Dana Library Hand font, and David Talley for construction assistance and support.

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Rachel Ivy Clarke is an assistant professor at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies in Syracuse, New York.

The piece is white thread on white fabric, purposefully making it difficult to make out the information. The embroidery is of a library catalog card for a title called Invisible labor: hidden work in the contemporary world. The catalog card includes the call number, publication information, description, ISBNs, subject headings and the names of the editors of the title. This is a real book, published in 2016.