Category Archives: Embroidery

Embroidery Deep Dive

I fell down an interesting embroidery-related rabbit hole while reading the book Fabric of a Nation (recommended in my last post). It reminded me how interconnected a practice can become over time. While most of the works included in the book are quilts, one is an embroidered bedcover made by Marguerite Zorach as a commission in 1925-28. I still can’t get over how contemporary her stitched patterns and marks appear.

Bedcover detail, ©Marguerite Zorach, 1925-28, wool embroidered on linen

If you aren’t familiar with her, Marguerite Zorach (1887-1968) was a painter and textile artist who was married to the sculptor/painter/printmaker William Zorach. I’ve been aware of her for what seems like forever because she was a Maine artist, but I’m embarrassed to say I never took the time to learn about her work. Rather, I was much more tuned-in to her artist/illustrator daughter, Dahlov Ipcar, who created vividly colorful images of animals within lushly stylized flora. They were, as you might imagine, very appealing to a young person.

October ©Dahlov Ipcar, 32 x 43 in., oil on linen

However, seeing Zorach’s embroidered bedcover and finding other examples of her work on the web all these years later, I’m only now realizing just how much I’ve missed by not learning about her sooner. In hindsight, I’m devastated to see that I missed the Farnsworth Museum’s 2017-18 exhibit “Marguerite Zorach — An Art-Filled Life”. C’est la vie.

Family Supper ©Marguerite Zorach, 1922?, Embroidery

Trained as a painter at the turn of the 20th century, like many of us, Zorach turned to the needle in order to maintain and balance a creative practice alongside motherhood. She was prolific, with her resulting textile pieces similar to her fauvist paintings in both color and imagery. These modernist textiles were very well-received, earning her wide recognition and a crucial means toward supporting their family financially. Yet, while her work helped to break down barriers between art and craft, critics still considered embroidery “lesser”, so in time her work fell out of favor in an early instance of the seemingly immortal Art vs Craft divide rearing its head.

I’ve been playing around with embroidery since I was 10-ish or so, continuing through high school and only moving away from it in college when formal art studies took center stage. After our first child was born though, I gravitated to making art quilts as a more child-friendly medium than the pastels and paint I had been working with pre-pregnancy. From the very beginning, embroidery was an important enhancement to each quilted piece.

Celebrating the Stitch

Unfortunately, at that time I was ignorant of the richly stitched legacy that artists like Zorach had laid out more than a half century earlier. There were, however, plenty of contemporary artists to learn from and to follow. Barbara Lee Smith’s seminal book Celebrating the Stitch, Contemporary Embroidery of North America was a benchmark for me as I forged a path forward with stitch.

At the end of January I showed you the beginning of my invitational eclipse piece. Many hours and stitches later it’s finished. I can’t get enough of the embroidery’s texture as it catches the light.

All these years later I consider embroidery a versatile mainstay of my work. Given time, it’s no surprise that any artist’s practice circles back over itself, re-incorporating much of what was picked up along the way. My current pieces include embroidery on cloth, as well as stitching paired with painting on paper. You can see examples of both in two shows opening this month:

Up & Down, In & Out: Embroidery and its Kin
Studio Place Arts
March 13 – April 20, 2024
Artist Social: Saturday, March 16 4:30-6pm

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Solar Eclipse
The Highland Center for the Arts
March 23 – April 21, 2024
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 23 5:30-7pm

One last note: when we visited the MFA, Boston in January, I was beyond thrilled to come across a piece by Renie Breskin Adams, whose densely embroidered work initially caught my eye in Smith’s book. It was the first time I’d seen her art in the flesh.

Being able to study this piece up close was like finally meeting an old friend/mentor in person. And now that I know about Zorach’s history and her pieces in the MFA’s collection, I can look forward to seeking them out too, to learn and to pay homage on a future visit.

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My three pieces in this show: Left: Poseidon’s Garden ©2016, Dye, discharge and embroidery on silk, 26″H x 22″W Upper Right: Mussel Memory ©2022, Stitched-resist dye and embroidery on silk, 12″H x 16″W Lower Right: Caught Red-Handed ©2019, Stitched-resist dye and embroidery on silk, 18″H x 24″W

If you can get beyond the mud on your road, there’s no better way to brighten up a drizzly, gray March day than with a healthy dose of color and the warm tactile beauty of this fiber art exhibition. There are only 10 days left for “Trichromancy”, which closes on March 16th.
Chandler Center for the Arts Gallery, Randolph, VT

Letters From Home

©Thomas Dambo at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

Among the many highlights of our trip to Maine last month was a visit to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. It’s a wonderful place, whether you’re a plant enthusiast or not.

©Thomas Dambo at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

Thomas Dambo’s larger-than-life trolls, dubbed The Guardians of the Seeds, pushed this year’s visit into the realm of the magical. If you’re headed in that general direction, they are definitely worth a detour!

©Thomas Dambo at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

Aside from enjoying the change of scene that comes with any vacation, I find being in a new environment has a tendency to shake fresh ideas loose, allowing them to rise to the surface. This trip was no exception. I had a bit of a forehead smacking moment when I realized that the iconic house shape I’ve been using over the past year is the same as an open envelope’s silhouette. Talk about a lightbulb moment! It looks like my work for the fall is now laid out for me.

House / Envelope

Many things represent my idea of where I grew up, and in combining some of them with the merged house/open envelope shape, I’m imagining the possibilities of a series of “Letters from Home”.

What better way to kick off the series than with a mussel shell, one of the more common sights on any rocky Maine beach? They served as foraged butter dishes for our lobster picnics, and I have collected more than my fair share of them over the years because of their purple-y color.

Working with those deep blues and purples has been pure pleasure this week; colors that vibrate against the red and orange of this shibori-dyed shape – originally intended as a house, now both house and envelope. What began as an experiment for carrying a symbol forward, now feels a bit like kismet, pushing the idea of home in a very personal way.

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Update:
I mentioned at the end of August that I’d let you know once the recording of the artists talk “Signify: A Conversation About Meaning and Technique” (a Zoom discussion I participated in surrounding this summer’s exhibition Hidden Messages: Old and New) was available for viewing. As promised, here is the link. I’ll warn you, it’s an hour long – so grab your beverage of choice. I think you’ll find the conversation interesting, down to earth, and in good humor.

Finished!

Well, almost. I still have to stretch and frame this piece, but for all intents and purposes it is complete.

With the holidays fast approaching, there hasn’t been much time for writing and I’m scrambling to fit in everything that needs to be done. A quick drawing session at the end of the day is the best remedy I know for slowing down and relaxing into the moment.

I’m sure your schedule runneth over as well. However, in an effort to bring some cheer, I’d like to share Alexander Unger’s claymation short that I found on Colossal. (Turn your volume up so you get the full effect). I hope that it will give you an enjoyable mini-break in the midst of all your festive preparations. If it makes you smile and forget your to-do list even briefly, I will have been successful.

Enjoy the special moments of the days ahead.

Art from the Needle Lives On

I recently treated myself to a copy of the catalog from the Museum of Arts and Design’s 2007 exhibition “Pricked: extreme embroidery“. As is to be expected, the show is thought-provoking, engaging and, as noted by former Museum of Arts and Design director Holly Hotchner, “celebrates the work of the artist’s hand in the twenty-first century”.

“Pricked” represented international artists of both genders whose art not only pushes forward into new realms via concept and unexpected materials, but which references the traditional in unexpected ways. The exhibition was so popular that it was extended an additional 7 weeks.

“Death of Blinded Philosopher” (2006), embroidery on silk shantung, by Angelo Filomeno Photo Credit: Michael Bodycomb

It’s well worth noting the remarks of David Revere McFadden (Chief Curator, Museum of Arts and Design at the time of the show) that it “is not by any measure an exhibition about embroidery, but rather an exhibition of contemporary art made by artists that use embroidery as a medium to communicate their ideas and visions”.

I have been thinking lately about the fact that regardless of whether for utilitarian purposes or as a means of artistic expression, the use of needle and thread is a discipline that crosses many boundaries: historic, economic, geographic and cultural. Recently that fact hit home on a more personal level.

Our family has a treasured sampler that has made its way down through the generations to one of my cousins. It was made by my great, great, great grandmother at the age of 12 in 1806. It’s an object that was respected, but in recent times I don’t think much was thought or known about it beyond being something of another era.

Pamelia was originally from Massachusetts and my father, who is deep in genealogical research surrounding the life of her husband, couldn’t figure out why she was in Portland, Maine where she made this sampler at such a young age, and how she happened to meet her eventual husband, the subject of my father’s research.

Pamelia circa 1870’s

Interestingly, I recently received a group email from my SAQA regional rep that included a link to a video about an exhibition at the Saco Museum, “I My Needle Ply With Skill”, that showcases Maine schoolgirl needlework from the Federal era. That led to further information that allowed my father to ferret out why Pamelia was in Maine (another story), and also the fact that she attended the same needlework school in Portland as my great, great, great grandfather’s sister. This is undoubtedly how the two met – and perhaps one of the reasons that this sampler was cherished and so well-preserved to be passed down in such beautiful condition.

I’m proud to see the way that Pamelia’s work was honored by the elegant frame that surrounds it. And I can’t help but be reminded that needlework has become central to my art-making. It’s cause for celebration that “hand-work” has expanded beyond the sphere of the relatively limited education accessible to girls of 200 years ago, to become a valid contemporary art form, recognized through an exhibition at in one of our most important museums.

And I find it uplifting to remember that we are connected via the things we make — even across time and place.

Elizabeth Fram

Eye of the Needle

Category Archives: Embroidery

Embroidery Deep Dive

Letters From Home

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Finished!

Art from the Needle Lives On