THE FINALISTS
THE PROPOSAL: "Embroidered Stains"
I'd like to propose a digitally-embroidered multiple. My major body of work is a series of canvases that appear as paintings, but have been hand-stitched, using stains and marks on the surface as a "pattern". I've also made sculptural embroidered pieces on found linens, for example, decorating and making permanent an accidental wine-stain on a tablecloth. Recently, I've created a project using simple digitized stitching to place a single, iconic splash onto sets of vintage napkins, re-unifying them, in spite of their various age marks and imperfections.
So, I'd like to take it further and create a graphic to be stitched on an industrial, digital, embroidery machine with multiple colors, that will be seductive, but still contain energy and chaos similar to my current small canvases. I haven't yet had a chance to use these factory machines and explore all they can do, but I would create a vector graphic to be stitched out on a colored muslin fabric or light canvas, which could then be stretched into 12" x 12" wall-hung pieces. Alternatively, the image could be created as a large iron-on patch that could then be attached to clothing, pre-stretched canvases or anything else if that works better for production and budget. This is an idea I've been excited to try out for a long time, to see how my work, which is improvisational in process, would translate into machine stitching and how far these digital embroidery machines can be pushed into the art realm through the use of abstract, quirky and dynamic forms.
Artist Statement
My work explores the contradictions between the impulse to destroy and the compulsion to mend. I juxtapose rapid acts of destruction, such as spilling and cutting, with painstaking, restorative labor. Embroideries are hand-stitched over stains and rips, contrasting the accidental with the meticulous, constructing narrative from randomness and mistake. The work scrambles expressions of aggression with masochistic patience and sublimation and plays with the feminine through the graphic form of the "stain" and the adding of peek-a-boo, lace inlays to repair cut holes that expose the hidden space behind the canvas.
