Beneath the Surface, Part 2: The Work

oneintotwotwointoone, 2020. Handcut and stitched felt inlay, wool and silk, 72"x72"

This is the completed piece I started in August and wrote about here: To Touch, Handle. It contains about 10,000 stitches, I figure, and probably took about 200 hours to complete. I love how well it works, that even once we see the word "integrity", the eye can flip back to enjoying the strange animal-like forms. As I reminded visitors to the show, our alphabet is originally derived from pictograms, many of which were based on animal shapes or other forms of nature. 

oneintotwotwointoone, 2020 (detail)

The stitches actually create a dazzle effect in photographs, making the edges look blurry. But as you get closer you can see individual stitches.

oneintotwotwointoone, 2020 (detail)

oneintotwotwointoone, 2020 (detail)

Material Thoughts, 2020 Hand stitched appliqué, wool. Various sizes.
(From left: Snowden, Shakespeare, Emerson, Einstein, Kuhn, Turing)

These pieces bubbled up from a dream I had wherein there was an important message but I couldn't quite make out the words. I wanted to re-create that sensation of being on the verge of understanding. I chose a very distorted font but it was amazing how everybody was able to read the quotations.

Last year, I had enjoyed the tactile pleasure of making pillows based on images from the Codex Canadensis, using wool felt on up-cycled tweed fabric. (See here, scroll down: The Wild Braid) So, even though there are a lot of tiny hand stitches holding the edges of the felt down, it was fun to make these pieces. I thought also of William Burrough's line that "Language is a virus." At the beginning of the pandemic that seemed particularly apt, but as I worked through this series (and went for many walks in the woods with a slow moving companion whose eyes were always upon the ground, noticing subtle plant forms) I was thinking more that language is a fungus, choosing earthy, mushroomy colours and textures.

Material Thoughts, 2020 (detail)

Material Thoughts, 2020 (detail)

Hannah Arendt's Table Runner, 2020. Handcut cotton on vintage linen,  21"x42"

This piece was completed just before the show opened. As a curator commented on the Material Thoughts series, they are all quotes from men. I had this quote from Hannah Arendt in the queue, but decided to switch up the format with smooth, elegant linen and blocky letters. Again, as in oneintotwotwointoone, I relied on my old skills as a graphic artist to cut the letters by hand, using an X-Acto knife.

Hannah Arendt's Table Runner, 2020, (detail)

Tomorrow, Part 3: Tawny's Work