Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Common Core Made Me Do It



This newish piece of work was made for a local show this past summer. I made it to spice up the typical lineup of paintings and drawings. I think I had the only textile pieces in the show, and I'm not sure that they were well received, but if one kid looked into that display room and thought, "Oh! I didn't know art could be something other than paint, pencils and paper!" while one  parent though, "Dear God, I hope my kid doesn't grow up to make this kind of crap!", then I feel I did my job. Ha.



But seriously. These newer "bubble" pieces I'm doing are all about testing the boundaries of what embroidery is. How much can I get into a hoop? How tall can I make it? How heavy? How unrecognizable as a hoop? Is it still embroidery if you can't actually see the stitches?

This piece in particular, is all about discomfort. The bubbles were inspired by a photo I once saw, that haunts me to this day, of an animal with an infestation of ginormous, bloated ticks packed tightly together on the poor thing's head. The ticks were just, huge. Like giant gray blue berries. It is a wonder the animal didn't pass out from blood loss. Common Core gives me the queasy feelings too.


I have some ideas for giant, installation type pieces, but lack the time to construct them, so I'll have to stick to small pieces and experiments for now.

My kids are always excited to see the things I make. I don't know why, but they think I'm the greatest artist ever. I'm gonna hang on to that for the precious little time it will last.


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