In 2015 we visited Myrtle Beach, in 2016 we ventured further into The South. The American Needlepoint Guild Seminar 2016 was to be held in New Orleans. How could we not go? New Orleans! The name alone conjures up a vision of the exotic, yet at the same time, pictures of the aftermath of Katrina. So off we went, Jane-Beth and me, and a bottle of Auchentoshan, and of course my exhibition piece.
My entry for the 2016 Exhibit was "Man The Builder", a design I had started on in July 2015. If you were at Myrtle Beach, you might have seen a mad-man sitting on the floor in the shop with a big design sheet, picking out threads. Yep, that was me.
Original work must be submitted to the Exhibit accompanied by an Artist's Statement. That read:
The inspiration for "Man The Builder" came from a variety of sources; pre-Reformation stained glass, the warm gold of the stone of the Scottish Border Abbeys, our need for places of contemplation and ritual whatever our beliefs and 'Cathedral Window' quilting (which I could never get the hang of). "Man The Builder" shows the growth of places of ritual from the first standing stones, through the Henge, to the great cathedrals and monasteries of the Middle Ages.
We know from Archaeology that men built temporary shelters close to their sacred places at times of festival and, later, small permanent houses, probably for their Shaman, priests or rite leaders.
As beliefs and needs changed, these buildings replaced the Henge and were slowly enlarged, or new buildings erected, growing in size and importance, the culmination being the great cathedrals.
My object was to show this process as it might have been illustrated in an old stained glass window, with pictures of the evolving edifices engraved into small panes of glass.
I chose to use silk and metals to emulate the warmth of the sandstone and the glow and reflections of light through the glass and onto the stone. I chose to stitch the mullions in Soie d'Alger as I felt it gave the warm effect I wanted. The central part of each mullion was padded to show the curve of the stone and I used wave stitch on the outer border to reflect the long chisel marks left on the stone by the builder as he shaped it with his rudimentary hand tools.
Old glass is uneven in both texture and colour so I chose to show this using a substantial layer of Neon Rays couched with silver or gold to emulate the speckles often seen in early church glass. I tried various methods of adding the "etched" buildings, none of which I found satisfactory until I found a collection of coloured lighting gels in my mother's stash. I found that I could obtain the desired effect of etching over glass by drawing the building on the gel, cutting out the outline and attaching it to the "glass".
Later, I was offered a different take on what I had stitched:
When we were simple folk, our God (I use this as shorthand for any form of deity or belief system) was with us and all around us. When we became settled, our God stayed with us and the holy person made his abode close to the place we considered most sacred to our God. Then the priests took over and built bigger and bigger houses and locked our God in them.
It was a lesson to me that people might see something in my work which I did not intentionally put there. It doesn't worry me. If someone finds something of meaning to them yet which I didn't deliberately put there, they are welcome to take it away with them. If nothing else, it shows that they took the time to consider what they were looking at.
"Man The Builder" was stitched on 18 count white mono canvas, using Soie d'Alger silk floss for the mullions and borders. The padded areas were stitched with three layers of padding cotton before the silk was laid over the top. The central motifs or 'glazed areas' are in Neon Rays. The highlights on the mullions and the 'lead' round the 'glass' are couched Japanese #8 gold and silver while the bosses at the points of the mullions are a Heavy Passing Gold we inherited from somewhere. The buildings were drawn onto yellow stage lighting gel using an indelible black pen and attached using small stitches of black thread.
The stitched area is 12" on each side and it took me 190 hours to design and stitch. I had a successful Exhibit. "Man The Builder" was awarded Third Place in Class, a Judges Choice Ribbon, and the "Creative Inspiration" Award.
I don't usually include lots of pictures of a piece, but it has been suggested to me that people like to see the progress of a piece of work. I don't take many pictures as I go, but here are a few I took when working on "Man The Builder".
Padded Mullions (white) completed mullions in golden brown Soie d'Alger.
The full piece with padding.
The finished piece.
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