Stitching life

I began work on a new small piece as I often do by thinking about a technique I wanted to explore a bit further. I had been experimenting with lines of stitching of varying value and thickness to suggest depth and thought they might work in a landscape using some of the cheesecloth I had dyed this year. So I began securing one side of the cheesecloth with machine stitching, which also stabilized the quilt sandwich I was working on.

But then emergency rescue vehicles appeared on our street and rushed away with a neighbor who was having a massive heart attack. I spoke with his wife to see if she needed any help and she was her usual calm, take-one-thing-at-a-time self, worried but handling the situation. That evening when she returned from the hospital, I went over to help her put some things away in the yard and, after a few minutes, it was evident that her calm exterior was only an exterior.

And when I returned to my little landscape the next day, the horizon line no longer separated up from down but inner from outer.

It ended up being a rather minimalist piece and now bears the title Psyche-scape. It can of course, as all abstract pieces can, move in many directions, but that was the main theme that generated it. It will hang in the Newburyport Art Association's 8 x 8 Exhibit and is therefore wrapped around an 8 x 8" wrapped canvas, a requirement for the show.

Its theme is an obvious truism--that we often present a face to the world that has little to do with what we are experiencing or have experienced. It is something I have seen in myself again and again, but it is so easy to forget when we are looking at another person. Perhaps now that I have felt it in my fingers, I will be more likely to remember.

There is more fiber art to explore at Off the Wall Fridays, where I am linking this.