Sewn Asemic Writing by Lisa Kokin

Cecil Touchon
Repository Magazine
2 min readMar 29, 2021
OM.2020.003 - Lisa Kokin — 9 x 6 inches — an asemic writing design made of thread sewn into a sheet of paper. permanent collection of the International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction

Statement

Buttons have made cameo appearances in much of my work over the years, but never were they the primary material until a few years after my father’s death in 2001 when I pulled out my collection and made a small portrait of my dad. This, as in much of my work, was a spontaneous and unpremeditated act, a confluence of material and subject.

My parents were upholsterers and my earliest memories are of playing in their shop with piles of vinyl and foam rubber. I have sewn since I was a child and the stitch plays a major role in my work, so it was natural to join the buttons together to form a reconstructed family portrait. What began as a memorial to my father soon expanded to the realm of family portraits, past and present, human and canine, and to the broader human community as I completed a three-part commission for a juvenile justice center comprised of button portraits of Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez and Fred Korematsu.

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