Mixed Media, Mixed Bag

When I stumbled over embroidery as an art medium over thirty years ago, I was a dabbler. A neophyte dabbler. In one instant of clarity I could see myself doing embroidery for the rest of my life. For twenty years after that I studied pure embroidery. I studied the great classic techniques of blackwork, Hardanger, canvas work, needle lace, whitework, and others. To my good fortune I was very good at it. But then a lot of people were very good at it. And then, just doing the embroidery over and over again wasn't quite as satisfying, so I started looking for something beyond.

The things beyond were painted backgrounds, painted threads, dyeing in odd colors. And then layering came into my life. Layered fabrics, cut away fabrics. Embroidery on top of cut away, layered fabrics.

In the mid-90s I started doing mixed media Hardanger. The Hardanger itself I changed from symmetric, formal, and white to curvilinear, asymmetric, and glorious. My first mixed media body of work was done in Hardanger.

Coleus, Non-Traditional Hardanger

And then I met heat and destruction at an Embroiderers' Guild of America national seminar taught by Jean Littlejohn. Heat and destruction were perfect things to do battle with the old ideas about embroidery. No longer was the stitch sacred. No longer was the fabric sacred. The first body of my work to come out of heat and destruction was called Burnt Offerings. I did about twenty major and minor works within it.

The Paths Are Overgrown, From the Burnt Offerings Series

I moved to Albuquerque in 2001 and there joined other like-minded mixed media embroiderers and was inspired to work on another body called Star Fields which also had about twenty pieces in it. In Star Fields, I started adding beads to the mix.

Mizpah, From the Starfields Series

What I was after in all of this was quality of surface. Texture and contrast. Subtle color gradations.

And now I am working in my current body called the Holyoke Series, still heat and destruction, still embroidery and fiber, but with lighter, less cosmic motifs.

Palimpsest with Ribbons, from the Holyoke Series