Napkin

"My friends now have a caveat when talking about their love lives:

Don't go embroidering this on a napkin."

I thought this might be the start of our artistic commingling...

"Thursday night one month later, he strode into the bar with a manila envelope. Inside was my sketch. I thought this might be the start of our artistic commingling..."

Here is the sequel to "He disappeared into a whiskey night."

Thanks to Phil for his sketch. (By the way, this is the print of the sketch, not the actual sketch.)

This piece is important to me because it allowed me to embellish on an actual event without being as confessional and personal as some of my other pieces. I consider it a bit more playful. It is very difficult emotionally to share the level of detail I have displayed through my work. The process of recording and recreating sensitive, intimate events has been cathartic, but has also embroiled me in the originating emotional experience.

When I began "Were I So Besotted," I imagined creating a caricature of myself, where I would embellish actual events. I am still surprised by how open the work became. I think the "truth," or my truth, is simply more compelling and relatable than any stories I could create.

In this piece here, I created a version of myself that does not quite look like me. I feel a sense of freedom in having done that.

He Disappeared into a Whiskey Night

"Friday night at local bar, tall, dark-haired guy dropped napkin in my lap with partial sketch of me, then disappeared into a whiskey night still holding my sketch."

Piece at top left:

Ink and embroidery on bar napkin from Sample on Smith Street. 2009. Ink by Phil Lockerby; embroidery by Iviva Olenick.

Thanks to Phil Lockerby for introducing himself to me at Sample, and for giving me the idea and the napkin for this piece. (BTW-he still has the sketch.)