Frijoles and a Witches Night

St. Columba's Wreath

oil pastel and acrylic paint on silk on linen with silk threads

(detail)

Bowl of Flowers

mixed media with acrylic paint, paper, silk, and silk threads on canvas

from the collection of Laura Sandison

Bandelier

transfer paint, pattern paper, silk and cotton threads on cotton

(detail--see the whole work at the very bottom of all the blog posts)

Walpurgisnacht

acrylic paint and varnish on photograph with silks and cotton threads

from the collection of Jane Moses

Pueblo

cotton threads on cotton ground

stitched by Judy Rose

The Art of Embroidery is a special interest group within Sandia Mountains Chapter of the EGA. We meet about eight times a year to explore the art and not the technique of embroidery. In the past we have studied topics like the principles of design, drawing, bookbinding, and altered art. This year we are looking into patterning and layering.

Sometime last year in AoE, we were talking about inspiration and how we worked that inspiration into art. In which direction did we go once we had the inspiration firmly in hand, so to speak? This was interesting to me because I was all over the place with inspiration. And I have been thinking of those few words we spoke back then as they apply to me.

I think I am inspired by other media besides embroidery most of the time and some other times I am inspired by the materials I use. For instance, I take a lot of pictures. I take pictures for different purposes. Some I take as records of where I have been and what I have seen. Some I take because the beauty of what I am seeing overwhelms me. Some I take because I see something through the viewfinder that I cannot see without the viewfinder.

So I have stacks of photographs that I see as inspiration. Sometimes a photograph inspires me to do an embroidery almost straight from it. This is the case with Pueblo. It is a picture of an apartment building in Santa Fe (where else?) that I manipulated on the computer, and made a cross-stitch pattern from it. My friend Judy Rose cross-stitched up the pattern. Consequently, that inspiration was quite direct.

In Walpurgisnacht, the photograph is the actual basis for the embroidery. I had an 8" X10" enlargement made from a photograph and I stitched over the photograph. It is fairly difficult to stitch over a photograph because every false start shows, every needle prick shows.. But it was fun to do.

Wednesday Group late one April went to Bandelier National Monument for a day of sketching. The staff at Bandelier was calling for artists for an exhibit of the monument to be held at Fuller Lodge in Los Alamos. So the three of us, Emily Holcomb, Karen Schueler, and I, plus my daughter Barrett, went for a day of photography and sketching. It resulted in this embroidery from a sketch of the red cliffs along Frijoles Canyon.

But sometimes my inspiration does not come from another medium, but from the materials I use. In Bowl of Flowers, I had sort of a vague idea about a piece, so I gathered materials I thought I might use in it and off I went with no sketch, no photo, only a yearning to create. It took me a couple of weeks to finally get this work in order, but I am very fond of it--and so was Laura Sandison.

And last I want to talk about feelings. My family and I were living in the Littleton area when the Columbine came down. I was driving home from a morning meeting when I heard the news on NPR. NPR! I heard it on national news when that high school was ten miles from us! Barrett was a senior at Cherry Creek High at the time. All the high schools in the area were locked down to keep the students from going over to Columbine while this agony was going on. That day affected me more than any day before or since. I cried and cried. I sat like a statue before the TV. For days after I cried every day. Totally unlike me. It was Columbine that made me numb when the twin towers came down. Columbine where my son would have gone to high school if we hadn't moved out of state. Columbine that most beautiful of high schools in quiet Jefferson County.

Finally five years after the incident at Columbine, I was able to express my grief and do a memorial piece. It is called St. Columba's Wreath.