Doodletastic

As I've mentioned before, most of my work is based on photographic imagery. Primarily, this has been an issue of practicality- I've sought a level of realistic accuracy in my imagery that is well obtained through photographs. I've also used photography as a way to balance the labor intensiveness of the stitchery with a less labor intensive means of obtaining images. A small part of it, however, has been a lack of confidence in anything drawn by my own hand, a question of the worth of such images.

Then, a few weeks ago, I was on a long plane ride. I was bored, and groggy from Dramamine. My thoughts were rambling. There was an airsick bag in the backseat pocket and a pen in my bag. Under these circumstances, this happened:


I was intrigued by the image I had doodled, and after looking at it from my little window seat for several hours, I tucked the paper bag in my luggage and took it with me. It sat on the side table by my bed during my trip, and I caught myself considering it daily. When I went home, it traveled to my studio table. There it sat, catching my attention, until I found some print cloth, red thread and the desired embroidery hoop. This is what has come from that:


Here is that doodle as an embroidery in progress. On the right is the unstitched pattern; in the middle is the pattern covered with stitches; on the left is the finished area with the pattern paper torn away.

This piece is exciting to me, as it's the first one in which I've really relied only on my hand and imagination for the subject matter. I don't plan to abandon my use of photography as a main method of making images (especially as I have a few pieces like that in progress!) but it is rather neat to peek into this realm of possibility. That excites me.