ASHLIN McANDREW STUDIO
Decomissioned
decommissioned wild fire hoses,
plastic plant leaves
70.5" x33.5"
2024
Due to the rising intensity of wildfires in the United States, thehoses used to fight these fires are decommissioned because theyno longer meet the required pressure standards. Every year, 1million lbs and 7 thousand miles of these hoses aredecommissioned and become waste. These retired hoses areused to craft this American flag
Fragments
Plastic plant fragments, quilt off-cuts
15 ft x 8 ft
2025
When making the Post Colonial quilt, my studio floor was filled with plastic plant off-cuts as a result of repeatedly cutting squares. They became the pieces that didn’t fit, discarded on the floor. It made me think about systems and structures the U.S. was built on –– systems in structures that many inherently don’t fit into. This map speaks to the incompleteness and liminality that this county is perched in.
Our Father
Discarded plastic plants, cotton thread
11" x 11"
2025
He is clearly recognizable, yet anonymous. Not only representing George, but the "founding fathers"—the archetype of the man who fears nature and her power, now rendered in his own version of her, made to never die.
In Divisible
Discarded American Flags
10ft x 2.5 ft
2025
10ft x 2.5 ft
2025
The season is starting to change and people are clearing out their garages. March 2025. They find an old garbage bag filled with American flags. It doesn’t feel right to hang them. Their friends definitely won’t want them. They post on craigslist, “looking to discard these american flags, but don’t have time to do it properly. Maybe someone can use for an art project.” My friend Orso texts me the link: “Thought you might be interested in these. See ya Thursday.”
When I was in 2nd grade, the year 9/11 happened, I have memories of my class standing, placing our right hands over our hearts, and saying the pledge of allegiance. In hindsight, it always feels strange. I remember the word “indivisible”. It sounds unusual in my memory. Like a mouthful. As if I can still feel my seven-year-old self stumbling over the word. Perhaps it was a word I was making up or was mispronouncing all along. I look it up. “Indivisible”.
Now I understand. It seems ironic to be in a country, now so divided, that people are looking for help to dispose of these nylon flags. In my studio, I divide them up with my fabric scissors. They reconfigure themselves in a new way. The word they form seems to speak for itself. In Divisible.
When I was in 2nd grade, the year 9/11 happened, I have memories of my class standing, placing our right hands over our hearts, and saying the pledge of allegiance. In hindsight, it always feels strange. I remember the word “indivisible”. It sounds unusual in my memory. Like a mouthful. As if I can still feel my seven-year-old self stumbling over the word. Perhaps it was a word I was making up or was mispronouncing all along. I look it up. “Indivisible”.
Now I understand. It seems ironic to be in a country, now so divided, that people are looking for help to dispose of these nylon flags. In my studio, I divide them up with my fabric scissors. They reconfigure themselves in a new way. The word they form seems to speak for itself. In Divisible.
Disparate Forms
quilted plastic plants,google earth screen shots,
discarded computer graphics card,
2024
discarded computer graphics card,
2024
DVI Clay Coil Pot
Discarded DVI and HDMI cords, wire,
15" x 14"
202
Cable Coil Baskets
discarded usb and ethernet cords
PreTense
Traditional craft techniques—quilting, coiling, weaving—are applied to contemporary detritus, creating tension between methods rooted in cultural memory and materials born from industrial amnesia. The recurring imagery of American symbols (flags, founding fathers, maps) rendered in waste speaks to a nation that has become what it consumes: fragmented, divisible, synthetic, and increasingly unable to sustain the weight of its own contradictions.
The work traces a genealogy of disconnection beginning with colonial foundations and extending into current ecological and social crises, asking: What does it mean to build a nation on the promise of liberty while systematically destroying connection—to earth, to community, to culture, to each other? These pieces occupy a space of incompleteness and liminality, reflecting systems many inherently don't fit into, and a moment where the word "indivisible" rings increasingly hollow.