These large-scale drawings are among the first of many experiments on continuous-feed computer paper. During the era of punch cards and room-sized computers, Rapoport chanced upon this paper in a rubbish bin in the basement of the UC Berkeley mathematics building. Drawn to the then-futuristic aesthetic of sprocket holes, grid lines, and cryptic inscriptions, Rapoport drew into the existing patterns with graphite, colored pencil, and ink stamps, and stitched the construction together with colorful yarn.

The Yarn Drawings feature Rapoport’s “Nu-Shu” stencil language of feminine symbols – Nüshu is a script used exclusively by women in Hunan, China. In these drawings, overlapping chains of X chromosome and vulva forms – tracings of a plastic uterus from an anatomy kit – frame the fleshy, sinusoidal curves in the underlying dot matrix printed graphs.