Artist Statement
Textiles have always held a special place in my life, my grandmother was a seamstress and growing up all of my holidays were spent in clothing she had made. In my teens I started sewing and making other needles crafts for leisure. When I first started knitting I was the type of person that thought the work had to be perfect: no dropped stitches, never and knit stitch when the pattern said to purl; I would spend hours ripping out rows and re-stitching. Then one day while pulling apart a project to fix a single stitch a close family friend told me about the humble or humility stitch.
In traditional western hand-crafts the humility stitch is viewed as a “mistake” in a quilt, needlepoint, knitted or crocheted items, often these can only be pointed out by the who made the piece. With the spread of the Industrial Revolution and the increased availability of the sewing machines the humility stitch became a way for women to add the human element. The humble stitch can also be seen in Native American weavings'. It is a shared thought among many Native American tribes that humans are not perfect beings and that only nature is.
By using handmade paper, simple imagery and needle craft techniques I try to bring light to the humble stitch. My art is about the process; the pulling of sheets, pulp painting, and even the crocheting or sewing together of my sheets; rather than using machine I prefer to make work that focuses on the handmade quality.
In traditional western hand-crafts the humility stitch is viewed as a “mistake” in a quilt, needlepoint, knitted or crocheted items, often these can only be pointed out by the who made the piece. With the spread of the Industrial Revolution and the increased availability of the sewing machines the humility stitch became a way for women to add the human element. The humble stitch can also be seen in Native American weavings'. It is a shared thought among many Native American tribes that humans are not perfect beings and that only nature is.
By using handmade paper, simple imagery and needle craft techniques I try to bring light to the humble stitch. My art is about the process; the pulling of sheets, pulp painting, and even the crocheting or sewing together of my sheets; rather than using machine I prefer to make work that focuses on the handmade quality.