HOLÉ
Doyers and The Knockdown Center
December 11, 2016, January 17, 2017

"HOLÉ, is the collaboration between Amanda Wachob and Mary Ellen Carroll who participated in the program for NASTY WOMEN, the group exhibition started by Jessamyn Fiore and Roxanne Jackson that served to demonstrate solidarity among artists who identify with being a Nasty Woman in the face of threats to roll back women’s rights, individual rights, and abortion rights. It also served as a fundraiser to support organizations defending these rights and to be a platform for organizing before the Presidential Inauguration on January 20, 2017.

In 2016, Wachob wrote an email to Carroll and asked, would you be up for doing some sort of weird-y tattoo, concept/design collaboration? Carroll sent this response. It is an instruction she wrote over 20 year ago following a conversation with her friend/fellow artist, Robert Blanchon on the way back from the Meat Rack to their house, Debris, Jr. in Cherry Grove on Fire Island:

TAKE ANYTHING WITH A HOLE IN IT AND FILL IT PERMANENTLY. THE ABSENCE BECOMES PERMANENT AND THE PERMANENT CANNOT BECOME ABSENT."