No Chain Binds the Soul Theda Sandiford 66x24x10” Recovered marine line, sea tumbled, woven and knotted with eyelash yarn, fabric, acrylic yarn , deconstructed line, beads, bells and shells. 2024
This work bears witness to the unseen threads that connect the past, present, and future—an exploration of memory, magic, and spiritual protection, all woven into the fabric of life itself. Using marine debris collected from beaches in the aftermath of hurricanes, alongside conjure bags and objects such as locs of my hair, beads, shells, and my Dad’s old hearing aid batteries, I’ve created a sacred vessel to bridge the realms of the living and the dead.
Beads and shellsGreen lineHandmade bellsBeaded center
Entre Genres captures the essence of a cloud in a bottle, where airy meets musk in an interplay of weightlessness and sensuality.
Entre Genres—between genders—echoes in the in-between: between what’s seen and what’s felt, between softness and sharpness, between what we carry and what we choose to let go.
When I wrap and weave with reclaimed materials—veggie mesh bags, marine line, sari yarn, beads, cowrie shells, bottle caps—I’m telling stories that don’t fit neatly into boxes. These are stories about how gender, race, memory, and power collide. They’re messy, layered, sometimes contradictory—just like the objects I gather.
I don’t believe in fixed categories. My practice is fluid. A soft sculpture can be a shield. A braid can draw a boundary. A shopping cart can carry both trauma and transformation. The materials I use slip between definitions—just like I do.
In my hands, materials shift. They become tools of protection, celebration, resistance. I’m not interested in clean edges—I’m drawn to what happens when we blur them, stretch them, braid something new from the fray.
That’s where the beauty lives—in the becoming.
When I first smelled the fragrance—a cloud of musks—I thought of sunrise. That first light brushing across the sky, the hush of morning dew, the coo of doves at dawn. I wanted to turn that feeling into form—something you don’t just see, but sense, like the memory of a sun-kissed face.
Every material was chosen for how it plays with light—how it glows, reflects, and diffuses, just like scent disperses in the air. The musks—warm, intimate, almost skin-like—inspired my palette and textures.
Rather than represent the scent literally, I focused on the sensation—how musk lingers close to the body, how it lives in that space between presence and absence. This piece doesn’t just exist in space; it inhabits it, like a fragrance does. It’s about drift, about trace, about what lingers.
Much of my work lives in this realm—between touch and memory, between what’s held and what’s released. A cloud of musks became an invitation to make something that doesn’t shout, but whispers. Something that floats in the air between us.
Coty Infiniment Paris InstallationCoty Infiniment Paris Booth at 1-54 Art FairWall Label
Let me tell you—I’ve done my fair share of weaving on unconventional looms with everything from paracord to denim strips and marine rope. But when I recently set up my custom 24″ loom with a ¼” EPI spacing, I needed to get precise. I didn’t want to run out of materials mid-weave, especially when I’m working with reclaimed fibers that can be hard to match.
I stumbled across it while searching for a warp and weft yardage calculator and wow—game changer. Grist Yarn’s tool helped me take the guesswork out of figuring out exactly how much material I needed.
Here’s how it helped:
My Project Specs:
Loom width: 24″
EPI: 4 (¼” spacing)
Length of piece: 24″
Warp waste allowance: 12″
Weft take-up estimate: 15%
Plugging those into the calculator gave me the exact yardage I needed for both warp and weft—in minutes. No scribbled notes or mental math. It even accounts for take-up and loom waste, which can make a big difference when working with chunky or unusual materials.
What I Learned:
Even with all my hands-on experience, it was incredibly helpful to have a digital tool double-check my math. Especially when I’m planning a series or working with limited quantities of fiber, knowing my numbers saves time and stress—and helps me stretch every inch of my materials.
Have you used it? Got another tool you swear by? Drop it in the comments—I’m always looking for ways to make the math behind the magic a little smoother.
Elaborate strands of rope, meticulously wrapped, woven, tied, and adorned with recycled beads, zip ties, ribbon, lace, tape, and bells beckon you towards a vibrant installation that serves as a visual representation of natural hair. These daring and playful sculptures delicately encourage viewers to engage in unconventional dialogues surrounding microaggressions, stereotypes, and implicit bias specifically faced by black women embracing their natural hair.
Threads whisper across the skin like breath—sun-warmed, musk-laced, and barely there. Light pulses through glass and fiber, teasing scent into form, until all that’s left is sensation suspended in air. This work doesn’t depict fragrance; it embodies it—an atmosphere where cloud becomes cloth and desire lingers in the space between touch and memory. It hovers between sensation and suggestion, where softness gathers form and scent becomes intimacy. Neither masculine nor feminine, but something in between—an alchemy of opposites, drifting toward the liminal, the numinous, the sublime. A breath held in silk and light, coaxing the senses into a slow unravel.
This display captures the essence of a cloud in a bottle, where airy meets musk in an interplay of weightlessness and sensuality. The woven structure, perfume bottles, and illumination create a dreamlike atmosphere—a triptych of unbearable lightness. The draped strings of bottle caps and beads add a playful touch, their movement producing a whisper of sound, that lingers in the air.
Entre Genres—between genders—echoes in the in-between: between what’s seen and what’s felt, between softness and sharpness, between what we carry and what we choose to let go.
When I wrap and weave with reclaimed materials—veggie mesh bags, marine line, sari yarn, beads, cowrie shells, bottle caps—I’m telling stories that don’t fit neatly into boxes. These are stories about how gender, race, memory, and power collide. They’re messy, layered, sometimes contradictory—just like the objects I gather.
I don’t believe in fixed categories. My practice is fluid. A soft sculpture can be a shield. A braid can draw a boundary. A shopping cart can carry both trauma and transformation. The materials I use slip between definitions—just like I do. Entre Genres is a space I return to again and again. It’s where I feel most alive.
In my hands, materials shift. They become tools of protection, celebration, resistance. I’m not interested in clean edges—I’m drawn to what happens when we blur them, stretch them, braid something new from the fray.
That’s where the beauty lives—in the becoming.
When I first smelled the fragrance—a cloud of musks—I thought of sunrise. That first light brushing across the sky, the hush of morning dew, the coo of doves at dawn. I wanted to turn that feeling into form—something you don’t just see, but sense, like the memory of a sun-kissed face.
To make this piece, I collaborated with Nate Watson to build a custom loom lightbox. I wanted the light to pass through the weaving, refracted by glass bottles. I deconstructed marine line into soft fibers and warped the loom, weaving cloudlike gestures into the frame to capture that airy, floating feeling.
Every material was chosen for how it plays with light—how it glows, reflects, and diffuses, just like scent disperses in the air. The musks—warm, intimate, almost skin-like—inspired my palette and textures. I wove reclaimed fabric in gentle, breath-like rhythms, creating a softness that invites closeness without fully revealing itself.
Rather than represent the scent literally, I focused on the sensation—how musk lingers close to the body, how it lives in that space between presence and absence. This piece doesn’t just exist in space; it inhabits it, like a fragrance does. It’s about drift, about trace, about what lingers.
Much of my work lives in this realm—between touch and memory, between what’s held and what’s released. A cloud of musks became an invitation to make something that doesn’t shout, but whispers. Something that floats in the air between us.
Offering to the Lost Ones Theda Sandiford 42x10x5” Recovered marine line, sea tumbled, woven and knotted with eyelash yarn, acrylic yarn , deconstructed line, glass beads, shells, chain and hand made bells. 2024
Offering to the Lost Ones is a sacred beacon of remembrance, crafted to honor the spirits lost during the transatlantic slave trade while reflecting on humanity’s ongoing disruption of the natural world. Using recovered marine line, sea-tumbled and woven with eyelash yarn, acrylic yarn, deconstructed line, glass beads, shells, chains, and handmade bells, this work becomes a poignant bridge between memory and materiality, life and loss.
The materials themselves—objects shaped by the violence of tropical storms and hurricanes—carry dual histories. They embody the enduring impact of environmental devastation and echo the turbulent seas that bore witness to unimaginable human suffering. Each knot, bead, and bell in this piece holds space for reflection, transforming debris into a solemn offering to the lost ones whose names and stories dissolved into the depths of the Atlantic.
This work evokes the fractured journey of the Middle Passage, where bodies cast into an ocean that became both a witness and a grave. The fragile interplay of synthetic and organic elements—chains and bells against shells and glass—mirrors the tension between bondage and liberation, death and resilience.
Offering to the Lost Ones calls us to remember the past while confronting the present. It reminds us that the sea, a vast expanse of life and mystery, carries both the weight of ancestral grief and the scars of modern neglect. In this offering, I seek not only to mourn but to inspire a dialogue about healing and reconciliation— between humanity and the natural world.
Liminal Staff Theda Sandiford 32x12x4” Recovered marine line, sea tumbled, woven and knotted with alpaca wool, fabric, acrylic yarn, beads, shells, washers, vintage watch and deconstructed line 2024
Liminal Staff is an emblem of authority and sovereignty. It stands as a sacred artifact, a conduit between worlds, bearing witness to the unseen threads that bind the past, present, and future. Crafted from recovered marine line, sea-tumbled and imbued with layers of memory, it is woven and knotted with alpaca wool, fabric, acrylic yarn, beads, shells, washers, vintage watch parts, and deconstructed line. Each element tells a story, a fragment of life reclaimed from the chaos of hurricanes, transformed into a vessel of spiritual protection and ancestral reverence.
This work emerges from the tension of being both tethered and adrift. It honors the countless lives lost to the Atlantic, the water graves of the enslaved, and the resilience of those who survived. The Liminal Staff bridges realms—living and dead, land and sea—echoing the pull of tides and the cyclical rhythm of existence. Conjure bags, locs of hair, and marine debris lend their essence to this creation, layering it with magic, memory, and the energy of reclamation.
We are water’s kin, caught in its perpetual embrace. This piece reminds us of our origins and the call of the ocean’s depths, where our spirits forever reside. Like the rivers that flow unerringly toward the sea, the Liminal Staff symbolizes our eternal connection to nature’s grace, the harmony between destruction and renewal, and the enduring strength of the human spirit to find its way home
Tangled In Time Theda Sandiford 64x24x8” Commerical fishing net recovered from Ha’Penny Beach St Croix USVI, crochet Locs saved from previous hairstyles worn by the artist between 2019-2021 2024
This artwork reveals the unseen threads linking past, present, and future, woven with memory, magic, and spiritual protection. Crafted from a blue commercial fishing net washed ashore after a hurricane and crocheted with gray locs, this sacred net bridges the realms of the living and the dead.
Carrying ancestral memories, the net honors those lost in the Atlantic slave trade, paying tribute to the water graves of those who perished. Each knot and thread serves as a conduit, extending beyond the physical realm to embody renewal and release. This piece reminds us that the souls of the departed endure, shaping our collective consciousness.
Tangled In Time – close up 1Tangled In Time – close up 2
Beaded Yellow Gal Theda Sandiford 80x16x5” Upcycled textiles knotted on braided rope, knotted with cotton string eyelash yarn, fringe and a string of antique bells. 2023
Beaded Yellow Gal transforms a childhood label into a vibrant narrative of self-definition. This work is made from upcycled linens, knotted into braided rope, intertwined with cotton string, eyelash yarn, cascading fringe, and adorned with a string of antique bells. Each element serves as both a reflection of personal history and a declaration of reclamation.
As a child, being called “yellow gal” was an imposed identity. This work channels those experiences into a masquerade costume of vivid color, movement, and sound. The antique bells echo the complex duality of celebration and weight, signaling liberation while reminding us of the chains of societal labels. The knots and textures speak to the intricate weave of identity, shaped by memory, context, and culture.
In transforming this identity into a carnival costume, I claim agency over a narrative once imposed on me. This piece becomes a symbol of transformation—a vibrant expression of joy and defiance that can be worn but, crucially, also taken off. It reminds us that the labels others place on us do not define who we are but can become threads in the larger tapestry of our self-created story.
