The Subversive Stitch

It was only in November when I started reading about artist Ghada Amer, that I started using needle and thread in my work that related to embroidery. Previously, it was more to mimic the stitching together of sections of tapestry that I had seen in Helen Wyld’s book, The Art Of Tapestry. There were some great images of rough stitching together of colour sections and repair work. However, I have stumbled across Hélène Cixous feminist writings of the 1970’s relating to women writing themselves back into history and thought that stitching would be a good way to literally write yourself into art. In response to am interested by the artists who subverted the ‘feminine ideal’ of embroidery as art making. ‘Seventies artists employed embroidery as a medium with a heritage in women’s hands, and thus as more appropriate than male-associated paint for making feminist statements’ (Rozsika Parker, 2010 p14). In 1990’s, artists like Ghada Amer and her contemporary Tracey Emin continued to subvert the traditional characteristics of embroidery in their work. In response, my most recent exploration has been to add this element into my own work. I have been using embroidery style to stitch the motif of Homer’s Penelope, whether sleeping, weaving or dreaming, images taken from historical paintings. It is not skillful embroidery because I don’t want it to look neat and tidy. The fabric I am stitching into is stained, ripped and I have drawn the image of Penelope repeated like a textile pattern in felt tip which has also run. The stitching is patchy and I have also used a sewing machine to compare the hand stitch quality with the machine stitch. in other work, I have literally stitched an outline of a figure or words into the canvas.