Just finished the topographical map for the Tohono Chul Park postcard exhibition.
Details:
I’m happy with the way it turned out. As usual, the .jpg doesn’t do it justice.
This will be sent off to Tucson without an envelope, so I hope the postal service is kind to it.
My needlepoint 21168 Stitches 69 Colors will be in an upcoming show, Foto-Fiber-Fabulous, at Fiber Artspace in San Antonio from 3-26 of September.
Fiber Artspace
1414 S. Alamo St. #103
San Antonio, TX 78210
210-633-6959
I certainly didn’t intend to spend all day working on this. But it is nearly done now.
I guess I might as well power through the last 9 shades and just have it finished.
Incidentally, this is my day’s progress – I scanned the top image this morning intending to post then. The colors are a little off in the scans, but I’m really happy with how this is looking. Maybe more maps in the future.
Here is the thunderbird project with 19 colors completed. I can’t wait until this one is done.
I decided, however, not to enter this into the “Wish You Were Here” show like I had planned. I’m increasingly reluctant to send it through the mail, just as I knew I would be. Also, I found another exhibition that I’d like to enter with the same deadline as the postcard show, and I don’t have time to finish both this and the one I’d like to enter:
This is a project I started in the late spring. It’s much larger than I usually work: 8 in. x 12 in. on 14 count fabric in 100 colors. I’m not sure why I made this pattern so large – it’s too big to fit on the bed of our scanner, so documentation will continue to be less than ideal. As shown, this is 9 colors finished.
I still want to enter the postcard show, though, because I think it’s a great idea. So I found some topographic maps of the Grand Canyon (more on that later!) and made a new pattern (more on that later too!) that will be much more quickly completed. This is the image on which the needlepoint will be based (click here to see the uncropped full map):
At 4 in. x 6 in. on 14 count fabric, it loses most detail and becomes rather abstract – if that map isn’t abstract enough. It only has 30 threads, so I think I can probably finish it up in a week. I don’t think I’ll have any heartbreak at mailing this one and I can’t wait to see how this experiment turns out. I’ve recently fallen in love with the look of topographic/contour maps.
Two more colors added:
From about 1916 to 1918, Sophie Taeuber and Hans Arp collaborated on a set of closely related works—cross-stitch embroideries, collages, and sketches. Radically abstract, these vertical-horizontal compositions epitomize Zurich Dadaism’s attempt to transform society by undermining bourgeois conventions—except they were not made public. An examination of the differences between Taeuber’s and Arp’s public and private identities reveals why they kept their most “advanced” work to themselves. It was only in private that they could develop a model of equal relations between a man and a woman that eliminated the hierarchical divisions between the arts and their gendered makers.
Bibiana Obler. “Taeuber, Arp, and the Politics of Cross-Stitch.” The Art Bulletin 91 no. 2 (June 2009): 207
Here is a much better image of my current project, for the “Wish You Were Here” fiber postcard exhibition. On the left is the source photo.
So far, i’ve used 9 threads out of the 91 colors on the pattern sheet. The entire top above the bird is going to be Snow White, DMC B5200.
