Rest

‍ ‍Here

MFA Thesis

Quilts are more than objects of comfort; they are tactile records of their histories, repositories of labor, and evidence of care passed from one generation to the next. Rest Here deconstructs how memory is preserved and transformed through textiles, performance, and installation; reimagining textile practice as both an archive and an act of care. Technique and understanding are inherited through these practices. Fabric holds time and connection.

Berry explores how craft practices can be used to document, translate, and reimagine regional and familial aesthetics, particularly those rooted in Akron, Ohio, and the “Rust Belt” region. Grounding her practice in these inherited aesthetics, she reframes how domestic labor and regional craft traditions are seen: not as static histories, but as evolving systems of memory. Berry positions fiber as a living archive, a site where memory is continually made, unmade, and remade through touch. Every stitch, every weft thread, every stain becomes a physical marker of care, use, and resilience.

Rest Here

Hardcover book, 26 pages, 8.25” x 8.25”, edition of 50 copies, 2026. 

Rest Here documents nine quilts spanning four generations of my family, positioning quilts as material archives of memory, labor, and tradition in a personal context. Each quilt, through its patterns, fabrics, and construction, serves as a vessel of intergenerational knowledge and emotional care, highlighting the ways domestic craft preserves histories often excluded from formal archives. Rest Here functions as archival framework, combining detailed photography with documentation of fabrics, patterns, and maker histories, and emphasizing the dual nature of quilts as both functional objects and repositories of memory. Produced in a limited edition of fifty cloth-bound and complemented by a freely accessible digital edition, the book provides multiple avenues for audiences to engage with these layered histories. By foregrounding quilts and the book itself as archival objects, Rest Here contributes to critical conversations on materiality, care, and the transmission of historical knowledge through fiber practices. By integrating domestic craft into a fine art context, and by framing the artist book itself as a durable, archival vessel, the project theorizes quilts as complex cultural documents that bridge personal and collective histories. 

Coming Soon!

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Coming Soon! 〰️

Rest Here: Archival Practices in Fiber, Performance, and Place

MFA Thesis Paper

Master of Fine Arts, Interdisciplinary Art 

Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design

The University of Michigan