Chain stitch links us together

"we are links in the same chain"

He stepped in a pool of red paint...

I may have mentioned that I started writing poetry again, inspired in part by the wonderful poets with whom I interacted through my @EmbroideryPoems project. In a direction related to that work but with a twist, I am stitching parts of poems on dolls and their accoutrements and environments. This is my first attempt at this new process, in which I put together bits and pieces of ideas from various other projects. It is a very time-consuming process!

A lot of work and ideas lie ahead! This is just an excerpt of a poem in which I and a number of others appear. I should mention that my poems are like stories written in poem form with some internal rhyming.

Starting off 2014 with a non-literal but literary Bang

(freedom is a trip)

a concrete (i.e. visual) poem by Montana Ray 

My re-interpretation in embroidery and fabric manipulation with stuffing...A "soft" gun. Flat, before stuffing and embroidering, the separate fabric pieces I cut resembled Montana's original - I traced her poem to get the right shape. Somehow in the translation, the shape morphed. For one, I added extra fabric at the extreme right because I ran out of space for the top 3 lines of the poem. 

As you can tell, the piece is small
- 3.5" h x 7" w x 1" d

Crustacean support group

"Maybe I have to have a soft shell, be a soft shell crab so that I don't get smashed. But then I'll just end up in someone's sandwich." Crustacean Support Group.

Text by a friend for @EmbroideryPoems, BAC-sponsored project. 2013. 

Embroidery and watercolor on silk. 3"x3.75".

Restless leg syndrome

I'm pretty sure this is one of the lines from one of Spencer Madsen's poems from the Sorry House reading of a few weeks ago. So funny! I took notes in my iPhone during the reading, but of course, I'm not exactly sure that I transcribed properly what was being read.

@Spencermadsen #dateme

Text by @spencermadsen

Thanks for this entertaining bit of self deprecation!

Embroidery on fabric. 2013. @spencermadsen #dateme

first kiss...

Baker's Dozen

About two months ago, I sat down with my friend, KC, a poet and collage artist. You can see and read her work here. She gave me some poems to read, and I gave her some of my artwork to look at. We decided to try to combine our artistic voices.

At top is an image of my embroidery of one of her poems, "Baker's Dozen:"

Pretty is a pat on the head,

The folds of the body she swims in

and from which she is fled.

Pretty is a pat on the head.

It isn't the form that locates her dread,

it's the distance from whom she's been.

Pretty is a pat on the head,

the folds of the body she swims in.

We did end up talking a bit about swimming, which is a sport I have no talent for (I think you all know by now how I feel about running). We agreed that an undercurrent of water ran through a few of the poems. 

I stitched this poem on a piece of an old bathing suit that never quite fit. I actually have had it since I went to summer camp as a teenager. It always seemed old fashioned to me, and was intended for a body with more curves than mine.

Always I return to you.

Piece at left:
"Always I return to you." 2009. 4.75" wide X 8.5" high. Embroidery on fabric.

"Loving you is like running uphill—there is construction on the side of the road, the streets are out of order, yet I move forward. Always I return to you."

In my hair, I say "hold onto me or let me go. Darling, hold onto me."

Please see the previous post, April 15, "Generation 'Maybe, I don't know.' Hold Onto Me Tightly, or Let Me Go (piece in progress).

In finishing this piece, I realize it is a love poem for running, and also for someone I'm close to right now.