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.

The Ballerina Doll and Madame Alexander

Yesterday I was shopping for fabric to line a tote bag I want to make to carry a framed embroidery. In the cutting table line in front of me was a woman who was buying fabric for her seven-year-old granddaughter whose favorite show was about making clothes for models.

She and I got to talking while waiting for the one clerk to make her way through that long line of women. Her name was Sheila and she had been taught to sew by her mother in the late 50s and 60s. Her mother was an uptight individual who made Sheila take out every wobbly seam and poochy dart a small child makes. Consequently Sheila learned to hate sewing and refused to do it. Now her granddaughter was in love with fabrics and the idea of creating clothes, and Sheila herself was having sort of a renaissance in sewing. She had a machine and she wanted to help her granddaughter work on this dream.

When I was a child I had a similar experience. My mother was hopeless with sewing and so I was sent to my grandmother to learn to sew. I loved my grandmother and she loved me, but this learning to sew was a real ordeal. On top of all this, my grandmother's best friends, Lillian, had a granddaughter named Pam who was within three weeks of my age. Pam was the apex and epitome, not to mention the paradigm, of the Good Grandchild. I labored over making doll clothes for my ballerina doll with pointy toes. Pam made dozens of outfits for her Madame Alexander doll. My doll clothes were grimy and crooked. Hers were perfect in every way. Now I liked Pam. We played together a lot when I was a child. She had a killer doll house that her grandfather had made her. But I really got tired of hearing about Pam and her sewing skills.

So my grandmother gave up on me and the sewing machine and started me on embroidery. I did two pillowcases over the course of two summers; one was a kitten drinking out of a pool and the other was a rose with stem and a leaf. I still have the kitten, though the pillowcase which I used for years wore out. I carefully cut away the embroidery while my mother used the rest as a rag. I don't know what happened to the rose. But the deal was that I was not good at any of this when I was seven to twelve years old. I was good at running and making forts, and playing make-believe. I was a reader and a game-player.

In junior high and high school I had to take home economics. So I learned to make an apron, then a skirt and blouse. I still was not brilliant at it. I was captain of the girls' soccer team and the basketball team. I was taking Latin, creative writing, and advanced English. My lowest grades were in home ecs. and typing.

Some people come to their passion early in life and some come late. My good friend Carole Rinard came early to it and majored in home ec. and textiles through two degrees in college. Needless to say, with all those years of experience behind her, embroidery is now child's play to her. She is a tremendous stitcher. I came to it later. As I said in an earlier post, I was thirty when the passion for embroidery struck me like a bolt from the blue.

Sheila is doing the right thing for her granddaughter. She said she was going to gently guide her and not force her to rip and redo till perfection reigns. Sheila also said that she was becoming interested in sewing herself, now that she had more time and an excuse to come back to it. She asked did I know of any quilting groups in the area. Sheila and her granddaughter are going to be just fine.