Stitched Paper

A challenge which has long gestated just beneath the surface of my work has been how to reconcile fabric with paper. There are so many ways to join these media, and most of my processes have involved the use of wet methods of affixing paper and other materials to canvas.

In some of my earliest works however, there was not just paint and paper, but stitches. I have recently rediscovered my old love of the fiber arts and this has led to explorations of dry methods, evoking the traditional crafts of quilting, embroidery and needlework, but expressed through my aesthetic of aged, stained papers and ephemera of times past.

The use of stitches to bind these layers of paper to fabric has a very different result than the wet media used previously. The lines of thread become a compositional element themselves, adding a textural, painterly dimension to the otherwise flat surfaces.

The act of sewing also connects me to my ancestry, to my grandfather who made and repaired clothing for the people of his mountain village and beyond, and to the myriad and nameless great-grandmothers whose skills with needle, distaff and loom were essential to their pride and social standing.