Reading List

In case you are concerned that I might be going all academic here, don't worry. My creative process is sort of an ebb and flow between immersion in the non-verbal world of working with my hands, drawing and stitching intuitively, and then emerging back into the shared space of words, trying to communicate what happened while I was off and away. Like trying to remember a dream. Sometimes seeing how other people do that is helpful. A good example is Judy Martin , who I think is great at talking about her work in a clear way.

There's a new book out called Hand Stitch Perspectives, edited by Anne Kettle and Jane McKeating. So far it seems it is only available in the U.K., but I have ordered a copy sight unseen, so intriguing is the premise. A list of the authors and their topics can be found on the Bloomsbury web site.

And if you have any interest in perusing some academic papers that are trying to decode the meaning of embroidery in different cultures, here are the links to three papers that I recently downloaded:

• Ornamenting A Narrative: Embroidering a Portrait by Tanya White 
• Traditional Embroidery as a Global Semiotic Signby Sofija Grandikovska 
• Semiotic Study of the Motifs in Nakshi Kantha by Ruhee Das Chowdhury, which I posted about yesterday. 
• And this listing about Biljana Dojcinovic on the Women Writers page is what got me started in this direction. She poses some very interesting questions.

Finally, some of you have expressed alarm at my recent posting about getting rid of my books. Don't worry, I only gave away a portion of them. I still have a ton, which are safely on Salt Spring and still accessible. I just don't have them close to hand, which, yes, has already been an issue for me. Maybe that's why I have been searching on-line for information.