Collections on Loan, Part III
by Susan Dawson
Originally Published Spring 2000
Innovation is interesting. I love designing and at this time can hardly
wait to see what surprises with show up at The
Exemplary. Peg Laflam & beve handwerger can be counted on for
something new and fresh. I am always thrilled by Beth Meree's travel logs
in stitches and last year I was completely surprised by Gail's post cards
from the Caribbean. But what is the most fun is, every year someone
completely unknown to me enters an exciting piece of embroidery full of
fresh new ideas.
Still after a lifetime of studying embroidery, designing embroidery,
collecting embroidery and after a decade of judging embroidery, I strongly
believe the best of what is being done now is grounded in our past. To
really appreciate what these imaginative people are doing and in order to
achieve the highest quality in our own work we need to understand where we
have come from; in order both to understand what is good, what is durable
and what the social context of our work is. The "Collections on
Loan" section of The Exemplary addresses this issue.
When I studied Japanese embroidery I was fortunate enough to sit next
to Debbie Bowers, an intelligent, sharp-eyed individual who had a sincere
and tactful way of questioning everything that we were taught. When we
were studying couching circles, we were taught to "brick" the
couching stitches ... to place the stitches as close as possible to the
mid-point between the two stitches in the previous, adjacent row. Having
come from a European silk and metal background, I accepted this as
reasonable. Debbie, however, carefully studied the pieces of outstanding
work that were always made available to us ... and soon was wanting to
know why we bricked our couching when the samples arranged their stitches
in neatly radiating rows, like spokes of a wheel. It was explained to us,
that bricking is a beginners technique, the simplest approach to learning
to work with a circle.
So I went to my books and collection and realized that all over the
world, circles are couched using a number of patterns in order to create
appropriate effects. The evenly bricked couching that we are taught in our
single course approach to embroidery lessons creates a still almost
stagnant disk shape, reminiscent of hand hammered metal. The spoked wheel
approach, that Debbie observed, creates more motion but less of a shimmery
effect. Often I see the spokes curved, which increases the sense of motion
in the design. The spacing between the couched spokes, varied in a regular
pattern creates an almost patterned couching or or nue effect. From the
Middle East, I see padding placed under some of the sections to create an
undulating surface to the couched disk.
Moving on to my own designs, I once dutifully did a moon in carefully
bricked stitches. Having really looked at how gold (or silver) can be
couched to best effect I now wouldn't be satisfied with an orderly pattern
for the face of the old man. My question to you is: How would you couch
the reflection of that moon in pool of water?
Please be sure to stop by The Exemplary. This year I know there will be
several opportunities to observe couched work and some really exciting
uses of super-imposed stitching. I'd love to discuss stitch usage with you
.
For more on Collections on Loan, see Parts I
and II of this article. |
