SEAMS

Every input gives an impression. For something “to seem” intends it has the appearance of some form of truth, though not necessarily. It seems as if you’ve been here before, but you can’t quite recall. The world “seems a certain way” can also mean the world “feels a certain way,” because you don’t need to know the truth to feel something. Impressions and feelings build on top of each other into a collected meaning or memory.

A seam is also a line. It has often been cut or altered and then sewn back together. It is often an incomplete line, maybe with dashes. A seam can be a fold that connects two disparate parts, brought together and stitched into a garment. The more intricate a garment, the more seams it usually has. 

A seam is also an opening, often a tear, to an unexposed layer. A tear in that garment could also be considered a seam. A seam itself could have a seam – a complete conundrum. We learn that a seam is not even what it seems. Pun not intended.

These drawings approach the world similarly, in a manner like song or poetry. Poems use everyday words and linguistics such as “seam.” Arranged differently, words convey meaning and feeling. Using words, a seam is opened. Seemingly disparate connections are brought together while commonly associated things get flung apart, sometimes entirely all within the mind of the reader. A seam is stitched together. The drawings, like individual words in a poem, say things individually. Many of the drawings have to do with landscapes formed by seams in the earth, such as mountains and rivers. There are seams in the environment caused by both natural and man made things, and I find that I am exploring them a lot in my work; they help me understand a bit about myself. Seams act as dividing lines that help me maintain a sense of narrative.

When the drawings are arranged with each other, that sense of narrative grows.  We’ve purposely selected a variety of drawings in different styles that share a commonality, maybe not immediately apparent, that enhance each other. They are presented in a fashion reminiscent of a time when garages, basements, workshops, shoe boxes, and junk drawers were emptied to form scrapbooks, photo albums, zines, and collages; when things were physically layered and placed. Some of the relations are disparate and accidental, but many are consciously aware of each other and attempt to complicate an exchange of their ideas. If you look closely, the seams connecting the pieces may begin to show. Some are more obvious than others. Classically opposite things like night and day, water and fire, or color and monochrome swirl amongst each other to reveal a complicated image of life in 2025. You can imagine that together they make up the mood board for a favorite song, or maybe the design layout for a digest magazine, or a firefighter’s operations manual, all made up of important, singular elements that tell you something larger when combined. They could be a field guide to a remote desert of the mind, a relief map of the seams in our existence.

-Adam Abada