I learned to embroider from my grandmother when I was a kid practicing on pillowcases and extra pieces of material. I let it lay idle until about 1973 when it seemed everyone was embroidering on jeans, shirts, and jean jackets. A girlfriend of mine was into it in a craftsy kinda way. She inspired me and so I picked up embroidering again with a vengence.
Books often used for learning and inspiration were: “Embroidery Book” by Erica Wilson, “Crewel Embroidery” by Audrey Francini, “In the Presence of The Dragon” by John Vollmer, “Chinese Embroidery” by Wang Yarong, “Views” by Roger Dean, and “The Prints of The Ten Bamboo Studio” by Joseph Vedlich.
The Jeans
Instead of embroidering on every piece of clothing I had, I decided to put it all on one pair of hip-hugger extra-wide bellbottom jeans. The butt was wearing out and they were my favorite pair of jeans. I thought the embroidery would make them wear longer. Little did I know that the jeans would end up chronicling my adventures in embroidery.
Jeans: 1973
Here's a close-up of my beginning embroidery. Nothing fancy. The idea was to have a trail of flowers running up my leg and around my butt. I got burned out embroidering all the leaves down the side of the leg and so it remained unfinished.
Jeans: 1976
The summer of 1976, my summer of love. I was free to be me and made a baby. This moth was my first project in learning how to blend colors. Of course, I got burned out (embroidery can be extermely tedious and time-consuming) and the moth remains unfinished.
Heavy Cotton: 1979
When Sherah was two and we were living in Little Rock, I decided to do a piece for her. I chose Roger Dean's Osibisa because of how fanciful it is, I thought it would capture Sherah's imagination. This is actually one of my first finished pieces. Of course, it's not mounted yet and Sherah's 25, but hey, one of these days…
Heavy Cotton: Detail
Here's a detailed section of Osibisa. Because of the learning curve on embroidery for me, I found that I could see myself improve by the time that I finished this one. As a result, the left side is okay and the right side looks much better. Well, to me anyway.
Jean Jacket: 1980
I knew John aka Stik from Arkansas. When he moved to California, he told me to come out too. Three months later, I was there. He left his jean jacket with me before he left, and I began to embroider a little something for him. Working on jean jackets is the pits. Almost impossible for fine detail. It didn't occur to me to do the embroidery on a piece of material and then mount it on the jacket. No, I like to do things the hard way.
Back of jean jacket
I love the artwork of Roger Dean. It lends itself so well to needle and thread. I forget what the name of this particular piece was, but I thought it would be an impressive piece to have on the back of John's jean jacket. As is the case with embroidery and me, my eyes were bigger than my stomach, and this project remains…unfinished.
Jeans: 1982
No one embroiders anymore. But I still like experimenting with various stitches for textured effects on my jeans. Flowers were good subjects.
Jeans: Another section
I discovered there was an Embroider's Guild. Everyone did such fantastic work. I was in hog heaven, until…I got burned out. Like I said, very detailed work. But I discovered French silk embroidery thread in Sausalito and a whole new world opened up. Such vibrant colors. The texture was so different from cotton thread.
Jeans: Detail 2
Here's a detail of my work with silk. Although silk is beautiful to work with, it breaks easily and you have to take special care. Okay, so maybe silk isn't the best thing for jeans.
Raw Silk: 1983 - 1984
Okay, no more jean material, I move on to raw silk, but back to cotton thread. This is another Roger Dean picture. I worked on this one for over a year. Of course, this piece is unfinished and you'll notice the charred areas. Yes, in one of my self-destructive moments, I set the thing on fire.
Raw Silk: Detail
I really honed my embroidery skills on this one. I started using the direction of the thread to imply texture and give it depth. Also, I started learning how to place one color next to another for different effects (I had done this in painting before, but never thought to apply it to thread). I'm glad raw silk doesn't burn fast.
Raw Silk: 1985 - 1987
I discovered ”The Ten Bamboo Studio” under a stack of sale books. It was one of my best finds. Inside were Chinese prints that had made it to Japan and then had gone to England. I fell in love with the style. For two years, I worked on this three-piece project. I did research and by now I was using several types of embroidery frames instead of a hoop so that my fingers would touch the material/thread as little as possible. Here's is the first piece. I saved the red camillas for last as a reward for working with so much god-awful green.
Raw Silk: Red Camilla, detail
Here's a detail of the vase and red camilla. By this point, I'm working with a single thread and to blend I'm down to splitting threads. For such detailed work, I now have a lighted-magnifying glass mounted to my embroidery frames. Yes, where do you put your mind while hour after hour you toil away at this? That was the biggest problem I found and ultimately what determined that these three sections were going to be my final pieces of embroidery.
Raw Silk: Duck Pot
I love the symbology of Chinese paintings. This piece was a refreshing change from the previous one. I saved the duck pot for last as I knew it would be so much fun to create, and it was.
Raw Silk: Duck Pot, detail
I just love this. It was a challenge to see if I could create a feathery effect around the duck's face.
Raw Silk: Flowers
I saved this small piece of the trilogy for last. It was so much fun. I put a lot into each section of it. I had the feeling that I'd never do this again, and I wanted it to be good.
Raw Silk: Flowers, detail
Here you can see the detail of the basket. I experimented with various stitches to create just the right basket effect.