Anneliese Merrigan

It's Hard to Be a Saint

Perhaps the World Ends here is my BFA thesis work. It’s represented as a series of 14 TC2 weavings pieced into a table runner & displayed as a little altar to the gratitude I feel for my friends. On the table sits two twin candles, an ashtray with cigarette butts from the last time a dear friend came to visit, a cow jawbone passed down to me from another, a Virgin Mary prayer candle purchased for my birthday, another handmade candle I received as a gift, a glass jar of aluminum can tabs collected by my roommate, a ceramic deer broken in the process of moving, my only unbroken rosary, & a vase of flowers I refilled each morning.

This was my second time weaving the tapestry after writing the files, starting in November 2022 after a breakdown that left me considering my relationship with religion & the way I view the people that are close to me—a sort of last ditch ritual to solidify the embodiment of my loved ones that are currently in my life. Each panel represents a seemingly insignificant moment related to a person whom I love that changed my life ever-so-slightly.

This piece directly correlated to To All the Bodies I’ve Dreamt of Carrying in Absence of Yours, another jacquard-woven piece which was finished a year prior that deals with the grief of losing a dear friend, & functions as a shrine as well as a form of postpartum mythologizing.

As with all art I make, language is significant. I love the written word because I can spend what seems like lifetimes searching for the right things to say to convey what I’m feeling, & then I stumble upon someone else who’s already done it perfectly—& then I stumble into it again. Perhaps the World Ends Here is taken from the namesake poem by Joy Harjo, who declares “At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and / remorse. We give thanks. / Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and / crying, eating of the last sweet bite.” The poems ‘Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude’ & ‘Spoon’ by Ross Gay also heavily influenced me, as well as Simone Weil’s claim that “Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer” from ‘Attention & Will’.

Futility is a very important concept to me, especially as someone who often feels most as home in these sort of repetitive, useless, compulsive endeavors. This particular machine has brought me so much understanding & joy, allowing me to lose myself in the repetitive/technical process, but ultimately that they can result in something meaningful. In that way, the weaving itself is a form of ritual for me, one that fuels a tedious & fevered plea for devotion.