Words Spoken--Design and Construction

This project started a couple of years ago, when I began writing down sentences that have been stuck in my mind for a long time. "You're the one who goes away" was first on the list, but there are another dozen or so, words spoken to me that continue to have a place in my psychic geography. My first thought of how to give them a life in art was to combine them with a line drawing of an object, with the sentence below. For "You're the one who goes away," the object would have been the rolling laptop bag. But some of the sentences didn't have an obvious image associated with them, and I decided that it was the words themselves that were key--that the words themselves needed to be the whole composition.

I've used words/text in other pieces in my body of work on Loss. I stamped a narrative in "Accident." I did a large screen-printed version of the same narrative in "Accident II." I wrote out my many regrets on the back of "Regret." And I fused foot-high letters in "Self-Portrait, Year 2: Beneath the Surface." Each text has demanded its own form. For this recent project, I got the idea early on of using the hand-writing of the speaker for the letter style of each sentence. For scale, I decided on a size significantly larger than ordinary handwriting, but still small enough that you needed to stand fairly close to view it; the stitched letters are about 1-1/2" high. (In "Self-Portrait," in contrast, I was aiming for something like a billboard, both in size and style.)

It pleased me that to replicate the style of another's handwriting, I could rely on paleographic skills I'd learned fifty years ago when studying medieval history in graduate school. I used a technique for deciphering difficult handwritten texts, which is to isolate individual letters in a text and copy them out into an alphabet. After you've done that, it's much easier to decipher words that previously were impenetrable. For this project it wasn't an issue of not being able to read Jeremy's handwriting, but rather that I wanted to be able to create new words from the small sample that I had.  Here's a photo of the sample of Jeremy's script that I used (a birthday poem for me, lightly adapted from Calvin and Hobbes, done when Jeremy was eleven), along with the alphabet I pulled out, and my first writing of the sentence in the style of Jeremy's handwriting. I was astonished that I got it on the first try. Then it was a simple matter to enlarge it for the stitched piece. (Click on any photo to enlarge it.)

I liked the idea of using a heavy-weight linen fabric as the base, and did some trials of dyeing it gray, thinking of a link to my work "Holiness."  But I decided instead on a natural-colored linen, and got a heavy-weight variety from a company recommended by Susan Brandeis, whose book, The Intentional Thread: A Guide to Drawing, Gesture, and Color in Stitch was a great help to me on many issues related to stitched lettering. Fabrics-store.com sells samples for a very reasonable price, so I was able to look at a number before choosing 4C22.  Another book I studied was Sara Impey, Text in Textile Art.

How to lay out the sentence on the cloth? I tried out a couple of different layouts. Putting the text all on one line results in an awkward size (42x14"). Splitting it over two lines results in a more pleasing size. But it seemed to me that the integrity of the quotation as a whole was better maintained if it were on one line. Also, if it's split over two lines, the whole quotation can be taken in at once. In a long line, your eye has to travel down it, slowing down the reading of the sentence.

As I finish other pieces in the series and hang them together, the overall shape of the display will create a different experience than just one piece hung on its own.

How to stitch the lettering? I quickly settled on couching as the best way to get a smooth, continuous line. Here's a quick explanation if you'd like to know what "couching" refers to.  The thread I used to form the letters is a beautiful silk wrapped paper yarn made from linen by Habu Textiles that I found in a yarn store in New York several years ago.  The paper base gives the yarn a crispness that helps to get sharp points in some letters, while also working well for curved shapes. Here's a repeat of a close-up from my first post that shows the thread and how it's couched. I used a very thin black thread  for the couching (80 wt Aurifil), so it's difficult to see, which is good.  

I considered doubling the linen/silk thread of the lettering, or using a heavier yarn to get a bolder look, but the single strand of thread is very beautiful, and I'm happy with the result. Another possibility would have been to use this thread on white linen, which would also have given a more striking look. But I needed this to be more quiet.

One other process element: Taking the advice of Susan Brandeis, I backed the linen with a light fabric, to keep it from shifting as I did the embroidery. That's the reason for the basting stitches across the fabric in the photo below--long stitches of thin gray and brown threads that are taken out once the stitching is done. I used a 12" hoop, propped against the table, which allowed me to stitch from both above and below. I've since purchased a floor stand to hold the hoop, which will make the next piece in the series easier to work. 

I started on a second piece for the series shortly after I finished the first, this next one to be words spoken by my mother. I did the same process of creating an alphabet from examples of her handwriting: some recipe cards, a list of the work done on our house in Woodbridge, CT purchased in the 1950s, and notes that she took on her cancer treatment in 2002. 

But when I tried to create the sentence in a larger version of my mother's handwriting, I couldn't get it to look like hers. I think it may have to do with the fact that my own handwriting is much closer to hers than it was to Jeremy's, which somehow makes it more difficult to re-create. Also, there's quite a bit of spacing between her letters, that when enlarged looks odd. I put it away some months ago and haven't gone back to it. One of these days, I will try again.  

So, this is the conclusion of my posts on "Words Spoken 1." Writing this out and sharing it has lifted a burden. Thanks to all who have sent me your responses and kind words.