October 28th, 2018:
Prior to looking at the readings this week, embroidery was not an art form I’d spent much time considering. When I’d ever thought embroidery previously, I would’ve thought about three main categories:
1.) The historical embroidery of the monasteries and royal families: garments and wall hangings of incredible embellishment and wealth. Much time and was taken to show the power of of the church and the opulence of the noble classes.
2.) The samplers of women in centuries past: the work of middle and upper class girls. The intent of such activity was to keep their idle hands from “doing the devil’s work”. The samplers would be hung on walls to show the time-honed skills of their docile daughters. To paraphrase the Hoopla chapter we read, such work showed the girls’ potential as steady, diligent and obedient wives (and nimble menders of damaged garments).
3.) But, to be honest, when I thought of embroidery at all, of embroidery it was of the 1980s and 1990s cross stitch patterns: the commercialized items that the “Hoopla” author so aptly put it, “Ducks in bonnets, cartoon characters, Americana, and kittens frolicking playfully”. That was what I saw most often in the hands of friends and family. I haughtily thought of it as a Cute, kitschy, banal pastime, even though I was impressed by the skill and patience it took to complete.
Prior to reading these articles I have never considered, or even been exposed to the more subversive and political aspects of embroidery. It was interesting to read about suffragettes using embroidery in their banners, trying to get votes for women, and the South American women who were using embroidery to commemorate their loved ones who had been lost in war (and then having that type of embroidery banned by the government).
What I found particularly interesting was the artists who were using gun inmagery in their embroidered pieces. It reminded me of the crochet artists we read about a few weeks ago who were also mixing the idea of feminine arts and artistic style/sensibility with the very masculine domains of war and the worship of guns.
I found the embroidered canvas (that had been designed and used by the military to organize the various parts of a automatic weapon) to be quite a powerful work. The piece, by Andrew Phares is rendered that much more powerful by the medium chosen. The connotation that modern viewers have of embroidery being a feminine, even old-lady art form, is in very stark contrast to the original intent of the printed canvas. I simultaneously see the soldier assembling and disassembling his weapon, and an apple-cheeked white haired granny on her needlepoint hoop, and the perceptive, male, artist who thoughtfully created this work of art.
I very much appreciated how Phares made the embroidery look very fleshy and phallic to make you stop and consider, what is the drive, the insatiable human/ masculine drive, behind the need for such violent weapons?
I look at this work through the historical context of American society’s struggle with the rise of gun violence, mass shootings and the inordinate amount of influence of the NRA. In comparison to Phares’ embroidered army issued drop cloth, “At Needle Point”, is the work shown in the artsy.net article, “11Artists using Embroidery” by Natale Baxter, entitled “My Super Sweet M Sixteen”.
Baxter uses shimmering, candy-coloured polyester fabric with embroidered detail to create a stuffed toy replica of an M16 automatic rifle. It looks like a sweet, friendly, squishable, “my first weapon of mass destruction” toy, a perfect gift for your little up-and-coming, fun-and-gun-loving, all-American girl-next-door.
Like Phares, Baxter is also using textiles, with their historical feminine/comforting/comfortable connotations to question America’s love affair with guns. In the face of yet another mass shooting in the US today, at a synagogue in Philadelphia, this obsession with guns must be questioned.
Reading Source:
Prain, Leanne (2011) Chapter One. in Leanne Prain, “Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery” (pp. 17-33), Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press