Lilyann Hames: Wear Me Out

Artist Statement

How did we get here?

In girlhood, I am taught my clothing is not only woven into itself but into my flesh. You are what you wear. If you haven't already inhabited it, just wait. I am taught that the things I like are futile, stupid, shallow, useless. Loving pink, hairstyles, sparkles, makeup, jewelry, trends, vintage, things, love songs, even more masculine perceived interests - it's never legitimate. If you're a girl, of course. Especially clothes.

But why is being a girl something I must bear the burden of? Why do clothes mean so much to me?

This is a struggle with the idea of loving something like fashion or art but knowing the consequences. A struggle with its conflict with gender. Its repercussions on the environment, destructiveness toward humanity. constrictions on self-image fight tooth and nail against its beauty, creative outlet, inspiration, livelihood. I want to make joy, money, community, power, from this corrosive thing. This thing that kneels on veins in Vicuna slacks, that suffocates and watches the life pour out of unknowing eyes. But it's So beautiful. Why?

I understand we were trained to think this way - buy it, try in on, it doesn't fit, throw it away, buy more, repeat. I understand white men created this system to make money -- they still do. I understand the irreversible infrastructure we created where these clothes are everywhere all at once and so easy. I understand that we fill the earth with endless things that never find a resting place. I understand we live in a graveyard.

I do not understand how I understand this, have the means to change, but continues to choose it.

This work is meant to be overwhelming, because this topic is exactly that. It's too much in one tiny space, because that's what consumerism does. This is a focus on the stress, the journey through understanding something that is deeply frustrating, and how it never ends. Inspired by Yoko Ono's Grapefruit, in its journey in thought, environment, and change, by pop art's use of color and light, and by Hannah Höch's surrealist collages with human form. Light and color are the cake as well as the fork: they are beautiful but they are the storytellers, the action. Words show a timeline, thoughts from inanimate objects or people, personality, and the lack thereof. Each piece is microcosm in the large story that is one's complicitness, conceiving, and confrontation with harsh realities. It purposefully takes longer to reach an Epiphany, a name of one of the pieces in the last stanza of 5 images. This is because change is painful and slow, but useful. Meant to be organized left to right in one line, the work functions palindromically, because change can evolve or devolve.

In my work, change is a choice and it is one that must be made every day.

This work aims to be looked at with a microscope. Think. It wants you to keep understanding until you find something you don't, and then do something about it. Changing is everything, it is the only thing. Ridiculously difficult but impossibly beautiful.

2023 VADS - People's Choice Voting

About the Project

• Title of Work: Wear Me Out
• Medium: Framed photography
• Student's Name: Lilyann Hames
• Major: Journalism (Strategic Communication)
• Anticipated Graduation Date: May 2025
• Hometown: Dallas, Texas, USA
• Student's Mentor: Angela Shaffer
• Mentor's Department: School of Visual Studies