ABSTRACT
An ink stain on cloth is annoying, but not devastating. Others simply think you careless. A food stain embarrasses, a slippage to the infantile. But with blood or sweat — you blush with shame. It's curious that a stain causes such distress. (Why not simply turn away?) This chapter explores the relationship between cloth, body and stain through the works of three artists, Maria Chevska, Verdi Yahooda and Anne Wilson, who at different times and in different ways have taken stained cloth as their focus. What interests me is the intimate nature of cloth and its implication of the absent body. For if ‘skin is where we find ourselves’ (Porges 2001: 22) then cloth etymologically that which clings to the body (Kuryluk 1991: 179), becomes a second skin, a metaphor for the layer between ourselves and others.
