imbues the
memory of place.
hear your flesh,
whisper
time is both alert
and wasted
echo misty green
stitches from past
to present. a metaphor
I can’t quite quit
— Isabella Manfedi
sew your echo is a sentimental meditation on the intricate geometries of human relationships. Artist Isabella Manfredi repurposes old footage of her family’s ranch to create an original film and textile-based artworks. Through stitching, printmaking, and carpentry, Manfredi presents artifacts as a conduit for memory.
Manfredi’s profound connection to her heritage, coupled with her trade as a clothes maker, forms the silhouette of this exhibition. As a young child, she spent countless hours at her grandfather’s ranch for retired racehorses in Ferndale, California, but she has no recollection of that time. Instead, she meticulously manipulates her father’s home videos to infuse a sense of poetic nostalgia. The film is projected onto a vast scrap of fabric with a shirt collar stitched in the center as a nod to her garment skills.
At the heart of sew your echo lies an ode to the tools that shape Manfredi’s creative process. These objects are scattered throughout the gallery as tangible artifacts. The hammer, a constant companion in Manfredi’s daily work, symbolizes the duality of fabrication and deconstruction. The redwood frames, crafted by Manfredi and gifted by her father, hold the weight of ancestral ties and the passage of time. And the recurring motifs of starfish, a delicate reference to the sea, dance alongside the skull, a memento from her journey to the tombs of Italy.
Together these tropes transcend their individual narratives, embracing the universal language of memory, lineage, and the enduring patterns that shape our lives.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Isabella Manfredi works in printmaking, sewing, and poetry creating sculptural installations that can be worn for years. Her work has nods to workwear, entropy, familial identity, and nostalgia. While she strives to craft a utilitarian object, she aims for her work to exist within and outside the gallery space. She graduated with a BA in Art Practice and a Minor in Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives and works in San Francisco, CA.