I’ve always been fascinated by the relationship between individuality and community. The single soul merging with the universal one, the different perspectives each of us carries, and the respect owed to what is unlike ourselves. I try to shape every work of mine as a mirror where anyone can see themselves—not what I want to say. I aim to be a funnel that filters the energy running through me, which belongs to everyone and to everything.
The three threads I’m using right now in my larger works—colored, neutral, and white—symbolize three possible viewpoints of the same subject. The white one, nearly invisible as it’s stitched onto a background of the same (non)color, also represents the vital energy that every being, alive or seemingly inanimate, radiates.
That white thread is the most important to me. I use a different stitch for it, one that puckers and pulls at the fabric. And it’s the only one that, when the embroidery is held against the light, reveals a constellation of tiny holes that let the light through. Bright constellations reminding us that “we are made of star stuff”, as Carl Sagan said some forty years ago.
With this sense of energetic communion, I’m always curious to see what other artists are doing. Over time, I’ve often had ideas I never spoke about, only to later see them realized by someone else. That has only reinforced my belief that artists are people particularly attuned to catching and expressing the movements of energy at any given moment—interpreters first, then messengers. The expression of a universal soul, flowing yet whole.
The King of the World came to me as a sudden flash of inspiration at the end of March. I stumbled upon the work of Javier Marín on Instagram, a brilliant sculptor whose pieces made me want to drop everything and fly to Mexico, or wherever his monumental works are, just to admire and touch them up close.
His art is staggeringly beautiful. It feels alive, as if it shifts before your eyes. I can only imagine the wonder of working on something with countless vantage points, unlike my almost entirely two-dimensional world.
I began sketching the first draft at the end of March, on a fabric that was anything but ordinary. It’s an antique shroud that came to me as a gift during my in-laws’ move—a long, narrow cloth from which I salvaged a few precious pieces I now guard with care.
This work veers off the tracks where I usually like to run. I don’t know if it will remain my only face (probably not, knowing myself); but for now, it’s the only semi-human presence among my flowers, plants, trees, fish, birds, and butterflies.
The embroidery has been with me all through April, with a few pauses brought on by changes I felt compelled to make. Not to mention the fact that I ran out of thread and had to wait for more to arrive from England—with all the usual Brexit complications. Even now, it still awaits its finishing touches, since I couldn’t resist starting something new in the meantime.
Leave A Comment