A New Project: Letter Exchange

My friend Barbara Adler (of Public Swoon fame) invited me to collaborate in a letter exchange, a public one. It promises to be very interesting, with lots of good questions about why and how we make what we do, in these weird times. But I will let her introduce it:

Hi Everyone! I am collaborating with artist Heather Cameron on a letter exchange project, and you’re invited to read along. Some context: Heather and I are working together as part of Mermaid Spring, a sprawling, process-led music, theatre and design project that thinks about environmental and labour themes and of course, Floridan mermaids.

Both this project and Heather's friendship have been transformational for me. Here's how it started: My dear friend and collaborator Kyla Gardiner taught me my first crochet stitches over a Christmas break. Heather enthusiastically praised the mangy rattail I'd produced as the *very important* – impossible to replicate – stitching voice of a beginner. Since then, she has opened door after door with thoughtful writing about her own material process (http://truestitches.blogspot.com/). She answers every rant and question I have about knitting, visible mending, embroidery, yarn that ripples like grass (linen, worsted weight), the potential of unfinished projects, collaborations with strangers, how to be patient.

I asked if she’d like to share some of this relationship, in part, because I think a little emotional honesty could help all of us right now. As great as it is that the arts are re-opening, re-building etc., there’s some heavy psychic goo swirling under all of it. For me, the year and a half of casual conversation with Heather has been both a balm and a spur. If listening in or sharing in the comments feels good to you, welcome. Heather will post her answers on her FB page and blog, so follow her there. Honestly, I think my main job is to get her talking so we can listen. Please do check out her letters back and her work. I’ll eventually put all of this on my website and The Public Swoon’s site, but better to follow me here for now. Thanks for reading! xx B

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November 20, 2021

Dear Heather,

At a recent dinner party, a friend complimented you by saying you’d make an excellent eco-terrorist. Women become invisible as they age. It was suggested that you’ve come to the point in your life where it would be easy to glide across a border, stir up some shit for Green Peace and be home on Gabriola in time to watch the sunset. The men at the crossing wouldn’t even see you: the power of being overlooked.

I’m all for duping any and all border bros. But this idea of the invisible also holds terror for me, particularly if I place it against my career. Backstory: I used to write, perform and promote work where I was spot-lit. In the last few years, my personal output as an artist has become less clear. Now, I mainly work on (very) slow, long-term, collaborative projects with modest public presence and others where I’m not the ‘face’. I have worked and made work continuously through the pandemic but presented little. If my art practice wanted to sneak across the US border and blow up a dam, now would be the time to do it.

I have angst about this, clearly. But I also have curiosity, which is why I’m writing to you with a lift of hope instead of moaning in a corner (Note for anyone corner-moaning: I do that too).

I’ve learned that in embroidery, part of the work is hiding how busy you’ve been. The mechanics of moving the thread across the design are tucked up in the back. Of course, this idea of unseen work is part of most (all?) making. But, I’ve been surprised to discover that in embroidery there’s additional rigor in keeping your backs tidy. So, you hide the work and then you hide the work some more. To me, this is something like the skill of humility: thinking carefully and quietly about labour that will not be seen. I notice myself freaking out about being less visible than my peers and recognize that I have a lot to learn about respecting the real effort of process. I’m hopeful, because I wouldn’t have cared about the back of the embroidery a year ago.

Heather, let’s get into some practicalities + mild psychoanalysis, please. I want to know: are you actively thinking about the back of your embroidery as you work the front? Any tips? And if you are thinking about the back as something that might be seen, who do you picture as the audience? Do you have an ultimate critical embroidery snob in mind? Someone who looks at imperfect knots and raps you on the knuckles whenever the thread back there gets a little too noisy? I imagine a French couture embroiderer who happens upon your studio, lifts your work from the wall and faints –– aggressively –– to make their disappointment very clear.

I think this is another way of asking: to whom do you feel accountable?

I recognize that my merging of accountability with ‘quality’ reveals how long I’ve spent as a student and around students. As if accountability were about receiving an A+. That’s off, but maybe the idea of students and teachers has something in it that we could use. I wonder: who taught you? At what points in your process do they appear to you?

I have more questions for you about quality and time and the invisible, but I think I’ll leave it there for now. Thank you for being my pal in this. I think your knots looked perfect when I saw them, and anyway, I’d never tell anyone if they weren’t –

Shhh,

xxb

IMAGES: 1. Here’s a photo Benjamin Samson took of me at the Accordion Noir Festival; sweaty, accordion playing, fronting that band! 2. Here is a shaggy little embroidery sampler with some blackwork, fluffy latch hook, beading, and many French knots. If you want to try any of these things on the same cloth, know that monk’s cloth is okay for counted stitch/blackwork and absolutely horrible for everything else. Is there a better way to do this? Probably, but don’t spoil the surprise, I want to hack away at it. 3. My knots. Faint away.