In this technology-driven and divided world, exactly how much relevance can the art of fabric and thread expect to maintain?

Last week Antrese Wood of the Savvy Painter podcast talked with realist portrait artist Cayce Zavaglia, whose medium just happens to be embroidery. The interview didn’t disappoint. The nuggets of information and wisdom shared surrounding Zavaglia’s process, the content of her work, the way she balances her workday with raising four children, and how she migrated from paint to working with thread, encapsulate the particulars I am eager to learn about any artist. So much of what she has to say directly resonates, and boy, what I would have given to have heard this discussion 20 years ago!

As she often does, Wood asked Zavaglia if she could share a time when she experienced a particular challenge in her practice and what she learned from that occurrence. Zavaglia responded that she now actively seeks failures and mistakes in her work, noting that failure is often a closer link to creativity than success because, while riding on one’s success can be great, it can also be a creativity suppressor, making it easier to pigeonhole and compartmentalize the work by inhibiting further exploration and discoveries.

Martina     Cayce Zavaglia ©2015, Hand Embroidery: Wool on Belgian Linen with Acrylic Paint, 13.5 x 10 inches

The pivotal moment Zavaglia related involved a work that contained a section she had reworked over and over in an effort to get the mouth just right. By continually removing threads she had compromised the integrity of the linen ground, resulting in a distorted image. The piece was exhibited but she was never happy with it, and afterward pulled it from circulation, keeping it in her studio for a couple of years, face to the wall.

During that time she became more and more engaged with the back of the piece — its knots and messy tangle of threads — finally arriving at the epiphany to reframe it in reverse. In doing so, the original distortion seemed to disappear as it was now shielded from direct light by the shadowbox of the frame. She displayed the piece on a pedestal so that both sides were visible, with the “back” side now considered the “right” side. It was the first work that sold from that show.

Verso of Martina     Cayce Zavaglia ©2015, Hand Embroidery: Wool on Belgian Linen and Acrylic Paint, 13.5 x 10 inches

Zavaglia says that while the portrait was an obvious failure, with time and distance she was able to find the beauty in the mistake. That discovery completely changed the trajectory of her studio practice, such that now the backside of her stitched imagery is integral in both her embroidered pieces and her paintings.

The point I found most enlightening is that in searching for the relevance of her stitched family portraits in the grander scheme of the art world, Zavaglia realized that these back images represent a portrayal of the hidden side of ourselves that we all possess but don’t often expose. Referencing the emotional impact of Anthony Bourdain’s and Kate Spade’s suicides, she acknowledges the parts of us which are messy and tangled and human, and the importance of being aware that they exist despite outward appearances to the contrary.

In that light, to answer my original question, I can’t think of a more appropriate medium than fabric and thread to make such an impactful statement about the effects of contemporary life within our society today — politically, socially, and emotionally.

More on Zavaglia

❖

And speaking of the relevance of embroidery: Did you read this article: “An Artist Unites North and South Korea, Stitch by Stitch”? Who says there isn’t power in the needle?