Limerick lace is a style of lace consisting of hand embroidery on machine-made net, which began production 1829 and named after the city in Ireland in which it was first produced. These lace objects explore the method of Limerick lace as a mode of digital resistance: in 1829 it was a technique to marry the speed of industrial manufacturing with the cachet of handmade goods. In 2022, choosing to make lace by hand is digging one’s heels in against the forward motion of industrial production while simultaneously relying on it. Limerick lace is on the border of these two worlds, as liminal as lace itself. Digital used to mean digits, counting on fingers and hands. Can something handmade also be digital? Can the screen of mesh also relate to a computer screen, a mediated overlay on reality?

This body of lace was produced for “light step and unswerving feet” in the Spring of 2022. They explore asemic writing, mysticism, and the history of lace making through embodied drawing, stitch by stitch.