Josie Love Roebuck (she/her/hers) [b. 1995] is an interdisciplinary artist from Chattanooga, TN. Roebuck is currently teaching at the University of Cincinnati, where she received her M.F.A (2021).
“When creating my work, it is both deliberate and spontaneous. It begins with a specific phrase or experience that has affected me either positively or negatively. Once I’ve reflected on the occasion, I create digital mockups as a guide to begin my work. It is when I start to assemble the pieces that it becomes more instinctive.“
“Once the shape of my surface and composition are laid out, I arrange several patterns/colors of fabric and yarn to see which calls my attention.“
“After coming up with a base color, I select different fabrics and yarn to activate the figures’ clothing further.”
Work created by Josie Love Roebuck.
“This process is done typically without being thought-out and allows me to gravitate to what speaks to me. I do not have a set pattern; I rely heavily on my intuition to determine which sections need to be activated by yarn.”
Roebuck’s process addresses the contemporary complexity of identifying as biracial by symbolizing pain, triumph, exclusion, and acceptance.
“Better Than Blood is specifically about my mother’s and I’s relationship and how she has always taken care of my hair. More specifically, how she taught me to take care of my hair, through being adopted by a white family, there has been a lot of trial and error in how I or someone else has cared for my hair.”
“Some incidents include picking out half of my hair when I was about eight years old, catching my hair on fire, wanting/getting bangs, cutting my hair incorrectly, and salons burning my curls.”
The act of Roebuck sewing together portraits has allowed her canvas to become her paper and her needle to become her pen, for Roebuck to draw upon the past and present to convey a story of her experiences and her family’s experiences.
“This piece depicts how my mother has cared for my hair, but it also shows a story of how I came to be adopted. Within the background of the piece, there is a hidden text from a poem my mother wrote to me on my 18th birthday, describing the joy of adopting me and celebrating me as a woman of color. The text obscured on the first tapestry says, ‘oh the curls,’ ‘my mother knew best,’ ‘oh the lashes,’ ‘my mother knew best,’ and, ‘oh the brown skin.'”
As of July 2021, Roebuck has turned her apartment into a studio and gallery. Her dining room is storage for materials, and the living room often has her moving furniture to clear out a space to lay her wood cutouts and tapestries.
Finished pieces are hung throughout the apartment like a gallery.
Work created by Josie Love Roebuck.
For more information on Roebuck’s work, please visit Josie Love Roebuck’s official website.
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