[2006] Text phrases hand stitched onto unbleached linen. Pulled from common cliches, vernacular sayings, excerpts from books, song lyrics, and other found commentary, as well as my own words, the phrases collectively investigate the way language shapes our basic understanding of the world. There are 156 embroidered panels, 11-by-11-inch each, installed in three long rows. The panels are organized so that as a viewer walks their length the subject matter subtly shifts. The focus ranges from questions about knowledge and reading: “You are what you read,” “The more you read the more you know,” “The universe is an infinite library," to phrases that conflate and compress the body with words: “Written on the body,” “Tongue in cheek,” “Eye to eye." They include sayings that describe the physical assault of language: “You aim your mouth like you’re aiming a gun," “A blow-by-blow description,” to nonsense speak: “Babel, babble,” “Yip, yap, yuk, yak, yawp, yelp, yowl." It begins with “Hot Air” and ends “Sincerely.” Hot Air Sincerely also exists as an artist book, presenting photographic close-ups of the original embroidered linen. Shown here are detail and installation views in studio and on exhibit, Barrow and Juarez Gallery, Milwaukee, May 2007.