Work samples
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Portrait of Young Woman in a Unicorn Vest
2024
Cyanotype solution painted on muslin. Vest is made from cyanotypes of the paintings Portrait of Young Woman with Unicorn by Raphael, Virgin and Unicorn by Domenichino, Lady with a Unicorn by Luca Longhi, and the tapestry The Unicorn Rests in a Garden. The pattern is one my Mom used to make a medieval maid costume for me as a child, which I wore into adulthood. Unicorn is made from cotton stuffed with kapok fiber, sumi ink dyed hooves, with felted milk fiber mane and tale.
Part I: On Memory
I remember when I saw the painting Portrait of Young Woman with Unicorn at the Galleria Borghese in Rome. I was 16, on the cusp of 17. I went with my Grammie, Auntie Margi, and Uncle Joe-my Dad's side of the family. It was a special trip for my Grammie to visit family outside of Naples, in Avellino. We stayed in Sorrento, Rome, and Florence. It was life changing. Over the years I have found myself thinking about that painting. What was it about this painting? For one the memory.
It was my first trip to Europe, and it was my Grammies first time visiting where her family came from. Growing up I did not spend nearly as much time with my Dad's side of the family. My Grammie and Auntie Margi were the first people that represented 'glamour' to me. Here is this beautiful painting of a young woman holding a unicorn, in a gorgeous building, in a romantic city, with these glamorous women, all in one big sensual country. It was pretty potent. Between starting and finishing the vest my Grammie passed away. After her funeral, my Aunt invited family back to her house. She had old pictures out and there were some from Italy. One of which was a snap of my Grammie and I outside the Galleria Borghese with a sign promoting the Raffaello (Raphael) exhibition.
Part II: On Desire
Portrait of Young Woman with Unicorn is believed to have been a portrait commissioned to celebrate a wedding. There are a few different theories as to who the sitter may have been, but the one I'm most drawn to is that of Giulia Farnese, a noblewoman who also became the mistress of Pope Alexander Borgia. Giulia is also believed to have been the model for Longhi's painting, and her Granddaughter, also named Giulia, the model in Domenichino's fresco.
Holding a unicorn showed the sitters purity and chastity, but also their powers of seduction. They 'caught' their prey. By positioning and then photographing myself like the sitter, and countless other loungers, I am exploring these poses that were/are intended to elicit desire in the viewer. In the process attempting to satiate my own desire to be desired. In aligning myself with women (or persons) of antiquity through the present, I am interested in understanding the future of my desires.
I actually found out about Giulia separately from the paintings. The crest of her family is a unicorn. Giulia la bella.
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Pillow Talk
2024
Cyanotypes of the Jean-Frédéric Schall paintings A Frivolous Love, A Woman at her Toilette, and The Artist and His Model; Young Woman at Her Toilette by Niklas Lafrensen; and paintings in the style of Jean-Baptiste Mallet all on muslin. Pillow stuffed with kapok fiber.
My meditations on softness, flirtations, relationships, pleasure, poetry, desire, sex, and the necessity of the ‘frivolous’ side of life are sewn into this pillow. Being pretty and soft does not mean something lacks depth. It is often in the gentler aspects of life that I find community. A soft breeze is appreciated, where once a tornado was glamourized. This has been a long lesson for me to learn. Not everything has to be a struggle, particularly in relationships and this experience of having a body. I chose to express these revelations via a pillow because I will often bring my own pillow (or leave one) when spending the night at someone’s house. Thoughts of lovers’ desires rest in these stitches and folds.
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Corpse Candle
2020
Ink on Paper
Corpse candles, or Canwyllau Cyrff, were luminous balls of blue or yellow lights that were said to travel along old corpse roads in the Welsh countryside and in some parts of England along the Welsh border. They were believed to be predictive of one’s death, or location of one. Sometimes groups of them traveled together to a cemetery or church yard, as a phantom funeral procession accompanied by muffled voices. A few days later a funeral would take that same route to the church for a burial.
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Rhytidome
2016
Charcoal and Thread on Undyed and Sumi Ink Hand-Dyed Muslin, Cream Felt and Sumi Ink Hand-Dyed Felt. On Avocado Dyed Fabric (Fall Installation)
36" x 28"
As a meditation on the changing of the seasons, the texture of the forest, and the passage of time, I installed the arms in a different configuration throughout the winter, spring, summer, and fall of 2016 in the woods behind my childhood home. There are an equal amount of both undyed and hand dyed arms. The documentation photographs follow the respective order of the seasons with which they were installed.
About Amelia

BIO: Amelia Eldridge is a artist and public librarian, born in the late summer of 1989 in Towson, Maryland, USA. She received her BA in Fine Arts from Flagler College in 2011, and returned to earn her BFA in 2013. She earned her Master of Library and Information Science degree with a specialization in Archives and Digital Curation from the University of Maryland College Park in 2024. Amelia has lived by the sea in South Florida; St. Augustine, Florida; and Brooklyn, New York; and in the… more
Hiraeth
Hiraeth is a Welsh word that doesn’t translate directly to English. It is something like an indescribable longing for a place or time that no longer exists. This project was created in an effort to bridge where I physically live (Baltimore County) and where my heart resides (Ceredigion, Wales). In the Spring of 2023 as part of a graduate requirement for my MLIS program at the University of Maryland I completed a field placement at the National Library of Wales. I spent time analyzing linked Wikidata tags added by library volunteers to their digitized collection of late 19th/early 20th century photo albums. I analyzed over 3000 tags.
From the many hours spent doing this, I came to feel drawn to particular images and pages. Thus, I made cyanotypes of my favorite album pages in the collection and made them into a quilt. While presenting my findings in person at the library, I gathered the ephemera included on the quilt. These include: sheep wool gathered from the Cambrian mountains, seaweed, feather, driftwood, and moss. The quilt is backed by an antique tablecloth that belonged to my grandmother. The cyanotype on the back is a glass negative called Merch a chi, Llansanffraid [Glynceiriog?]/ Girl with a dog, Llansanffraid [Glynceiriog?]ca. 1885 in the collection of the NLW. When I was in artist in residence at Createspace Wales in 2020, I was able to see this image in person at the NLW. At this residency in Ceredigion, I became spiritually connected to this place where I had never physically visited, but my soul felt at home. Hiraeth is intended to be a version of a Baltimore album quilt. More information can be found about Baltimore Album Quilts in this digital exhibition Victorian Albums and Album Quilts .
From this work with the National Library of Wales, my supervisor Jason Evans, the Open Data Manager at the library and the National Wikimedian of Wales, presented our work together in person at the library. As of 2023, the study we conducted was/is the first of its kind that we know of. Please find more information here https://www.library.wales/news/article/assessing-the-accuracy-of-crowdsourced-image-tags-at-the-national-library-of-wales . From our findings, I also created a poster that was presented at the 2024 Maryland Library/Delaware Library Annual Conference.
Y Tân
Papercut scroll depicting my time spent as an artist-in-residence at Createspace Wales. Y Tân is Welsh for 'The Fire'. Dragons connect each part of my journey, as dragons are a powerful symbol for me in my own life, and within the history of Wales. The scroll was started during my time spent at the residency in February of 2020. I returned to the United States a mere few days before the borders closed and the country went into lockdown due to COVID-19. I continued to work on it throughout lockdown. Folk and fairy tales are central to my work as an artist. I view this scroll as my own fairy tale journey, free hand drawing and cutting as my fairy tale unfolded.
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Y Tân
I blew in with the wind. Literally with Storm Ciara- it caused widespread power outages and flooding. Some parts of the train network were still not in service at the end of my month there. Dragons and wind go hand in hand.
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Y Tân, detail
I took a rainy, wind blown walk along the coastal cliffs on my first day at the residency with the artists who run Createspace and their child. I had never experienced being pelted with rain, while also feeling as though I was going to be lifted into the sea.
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Y Tân, detail
In process baby dragon.
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Y Tân, detail
Sheep are EVERYWHERE in Wales. You can be in the remote mountains and turn a corner to see a herd of sheep. This sleeping baby dragon amongst the sheep is probably my favorite.
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Y Tân, detail
Red kites have been reintroduced to Wales. On tour of the hinterland with a tour guide named Richard, who operates Cambrian Safaris, we saw them in the back country.
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Y Tân
From a blogpost I made after the residency about this piece: https://aprogression.blogspot.com/2020/05/in-progress-scroll.html
One of my main projects during my time in Wales was this paper cut scroll piece. While cleaning out/organizing artwork from college this past summer, I stumbled upon an old long form scroll I made in a drawing class in college taught by Leslie Robison. It featured paper cuts of me in these big blue headphones (the only painted part of the scroll) I always wore and a phoenix traveling throughout. I didn't realize it at the time, but looking back the phoenix was very symbolic. I realized I wanted to revisit this medium. Well I took a scroll to Wales with me, and this is the result. It was easy to throw in my bag, and lug across the country. A visual diary of my journey in paper cut form. I used an X-Acto knife to cut out the shapes. There is a lot of personal symbolism, that resulted from my feeling like I was in a fairy tale. I read Welsh folk and fairy tales to prepare me for my trip- a sort of theme and angle to attack the country so to speak. Perhaps it is unsurprising that exploring and creating my own developed narratives was a theme during my time there. The dragon is the unifying character throughout the scroll, due to my personal affinity for them (them representing me/my transformation- first a phoenix in college, now a dragon on a journey) and that the dragon is of major cultural significance to the country. I didn't finish it at the residency, but have a written list of additional elements to add.