Pushing Boundaries

I've been looking at the works of modern embroidery artists for inspiration, and found this article over at My Modern Met that showcases some of the more radical stitch artists out there (I love the gal who embroiders cars.) I'm also a big fan of Junko Oki's work (see Googled images here) because her stitching is so organic and natural, as if the thread grew into the pieces she makes. The white and rose panel up there from the recycled linen quilt was an homage to her.

Pushing the boundaries of my own embroidery skills isn't something I do often, mainly because I'm fairly limited as to the stitches I can execute well. Now and then I come up with a fun way to use traditional stitches, as with this tornado of feather stitching:

I have tried reproducing my original sketches and photographs with stitching, too. From an old drawing of mine came this:

Confidence and vision are the two things you need to push your creative boundaries, and this applies to everything you do, not just embroidery. I've always begun my own endeavors with the mindset of "How can I be different and yet true to myself?" There's nothing wrong with imitating another artist's methods or stule, because we're all inspired by each other (unless you're stealing their art or copyrighted works, in which case, no no no.) Yet I think as individuals we all bring something unique to our creative works: ourselves. I know I've achieved something when I produce a piece that provokes a reaction of "I've never seen anything like that." That's exactly what I want to hear. :)

Comments

nightsmusic said…

They're all beautiful but that last one always knocks my socks off. It just really speaks to me and I don't know why.

February 10, 2020 at 10:47 AM

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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