Interpreting NJ's Statistics Through Fiber

Materials: Cotton, silk and rayon fibers in the Rya and wool for the background.

This piece is the first of three works that intends to illustrate two certain disparities in New Jersey through the medium of fiber. These disparities have to do with deaths associated with infants and those who have died as a result of gunshot wounds. Too often, these statistics are out of plain sight, buried in the State Health Assessment Data page of the New Jersey website or in the Uniform Crime Report from the FBI; little known sites of data for ordinary folks. I thought it important that deaths of the very young and those who have yet to experience the fullness of life be marked in a different way; a way that may encourage people to stand back and consider whose lives are cut short and why these deaths are not representative of the demographics of New Jersey. The first piece seen here is a demographic view of the State of New Jersey using the Rya pile weave technique as it provides a good facsimile of density as this state is the densest state in the country. I apply more granularity to the data using counties to illustrate percentages of race, the southern and western counties exhibit higher amounts of white residents (85%) while the northern and eastern counties have approximately 28 to 40% white people.