A stitch in time

I recently moved studios after being displaced suddenly, and during the transition I returned to stitching postcards. I picked up that practice because it’s easy to do from home, and because stitching can be therapeutic, even or perhaps particularly when the stitching is an effort to mend. While climate change is always on my mind as I stitch these postcards, this time I was also thinking about community.

We, Artemisia Studios, had to find new physical space, and spaces that are suitable and affordable and would accommodate us all seemed nonexistent. We faced the likelihood of needing to go our separate ways. The threat of losing the community that is our Studio left me feeling disconnected and detached. And so I stitched.

Before I stitch any postcard, I move through several design phases. I print grids on translucent vellum, and I sketch shapes atop the cards. I take a photograph of the antique postcard, and I print a few copies to stitch as my mock-ups. I spread my thread of the floor of my studio and sort it into various color palettes. Usually I stitch a few of my designs on the replica cards, testing various arrangements of shapes and selections of color. Sometimes I’m satisfied after one round of mock-ups, but sometimes I make several before I feel like I’ve got it. Only then do I begin the rhythmic practice of stitching an actual vintage postcard, a practice that requires attention to detail and allows for a spacious, even wandering mind.

My mind wandered sometimes to how we artists might maintain connection even if our Studio was broken up. I imagined events and gatherings and text threads. Maybe we would host pop up shows. We would improvise. And I thought too about how addressing our climate crisis will require improvisation too. We need to plan for sure, but we also need to adapt on the fly. Climate change will likely disperse many communities, and we will need to maintain old connections while also forming new bonds.

Writing this I recognized that both postcards I stitched during this period featured people. While not unprecedented, this is rare for this series of work. In both scenes, the people are small and the landscape is big. In one the figure is solitary and contemplating a grand landscape. In the other, two figures team up for a battle of wits with the non-human inhabitants—the fish—residing in the pictured landscape. One suggests connection through contemplation, while the other suggests connection through competition.

As tools of communication between two people not in the same place, the postcards also suggest that a sender might connect with a remote recipient, perhaps someone who hasn’t experienced the depicted landscape. In featuring a landscape visited by one but not by another, the postcards suggest a possible connection via shared reverence for a particular place. This is all complicated by the history of postcards as advertising, both for destinations and for modes of transportation to those destinations, but still they traffic in a longing for place-based connection.

As I said, my mind wanders…but I think there is something “here.” Places, whether they are shared studios or national parks, connect people. Spending time in a place, particularly a place where you feel expansive and creative, fosters a sense of community. Now and in the coming years we will all need to fight for the lives of such places.

Fortunately we did find new studio space, keeping the Artemisia community going for at least a few more years. Yay! In a future update I’ll have more to say about our new space on Lakeside Dr and future events there. We are looking forward to making connections in our new neighborhood!

Today I share with you two new stitched postcards.

"This is the way they do it in Arizona", a hand-embroidered postcard from my series Why Was the Sky Blue?.

The first, Here is the way they do it in Arizona, depicts two fishermen on Lake Mead. (The title is an excerpt from the handwritten message on the reverse of the card.) I’ve embroidered portals of various shades of red and green atop the postcard, hinting at alternate futures possible given this particular past. The caption on the reverse of the postcard posits the lake as a “[p]aradise for fishermen…from all parts of the country” and an opportunity for a fisherman “to test his luck with rod and reel.” I chose to work with this card because it speaks to the gamble that is much of the American West, particularly the American Southwest, a gamble that paid out for previous generations but likely won’t for future ones.

"Falls from Glacier Point", hand-embroidered postcard from my series Why Was the Sky Blue?.

The second, Falls from Glacier Point, depicts a solitary figure gazing toward the head of Yosemite Valley. I’ve visited Glacier Point several times, most often in winter, and seen several “features” shown in this card from various viewpoints. Just over a month ago my husband and I enjoyed a late-season backpacking trip in Yosemite’s high country, and we saw Half Dome from the opposite end of the Valley, essentially looking back down the Valley and toward Glacier Point. On the day we did that hike I kept imagining Yosemite granite against mauve or mustard skies.

Both of these pieces belong to my series Why Was the Sky Blue?, and you can read more about that and see more embroidered postcards here. These two and many other embroidered postcards are available for sale in my online Shop.