There’s plenty of information in the world about “not your grandmother’s needlework.” What do you do when it IS your grandmother’s needlework?
As the designated textile artist my circle of friends, I have more than once been given a bin or a basket or a tub of someone’s grandmother’s needlework. “Can you use this?” they ask. “We didn’t really want to throw it away.” I say yes, and take it, and wonder what I’m going to find inside.
This time, it was a small Rubbermaid tub of patterns, two needlepoint canvases partially completed, two packages for quilling projects, and two counted cross stitch projects, unopened.
One of the needlepoint projects was a peacock, partially completed, in rug yarn on large canvas. We have peacocks all over the house. It’s common motif in our decor. Had this project than anything else, it might have been easier to let go of.
As I worked my way through the bin, I observed the questions that came to mind:
- Is the work any good? One of the projects was a punch needle poinsettia on white linen. It’s gorgeous. I wish I was someone who decorated for Christmas, and at the end of December, just after Christmas, I think I will be, next year. I save this poinsettia in the box to go in the attic for Christmas. Maybe one day I’ll get those boxes down in time to really make my house look different.
- Am I at all interested in doing the work that it would take to complete the project? I am not a needlepoint worker, embroiderer, cross-stitch fan. I don’t do tapestry.
I’m not sure about this peacock. The colors are dated, and the work shifts in mid-bird. I’m guessing grandma got sick, or started having strokes, or the dementia kicked in. I don’t actually know what she died of, but there is such a clear change in the work midway through this bird that clearly something happened.
I want to honor the work. I want to honor the energy, and I want to mark the moment that something changed in her mind when the work went from balanced and even to chaotic. /*Find link to lace knitter who did the Alzheimer’s project. */ Is this peacock a starting point for a work like that?
I could slice the existing work off with a razor, and then unpick it, and make something else on the canvas. I could overwork the existing bird with some shiny metallics, and add some glitter, and I could finish the background in pretty spirals and make it look all Klimt-ish. And maybe just writing about it is enough to honor the bird and the work and the woman.
ANOTHER ARTIST /*Find Link */ collects half finished needlepoints and finishes the canvas in white, to honor the gaps in our lives when we can’t finish our project. Her work is controversial. Some people think it is inane, and other people recognized how enormously devoted the artist must be to do that much work in plain white wool.
I don’t have a good answer yet. I don’t have a rubric. My art is about repurposing materials we see everyday and making you take a new look at them. This particular peacock project seems like a great opportunity to do that, only I don’t quite know how yet.
I know to get rid of the rusty needles. Drop them in my sharps can right away; there’s no redeeming them. Unload the acrylic yarn pretty quickly. I don’t let that in my house. I found some Sugar and Cream cotton the other day, and I’ll work it up into a washcloth, and let it live out its life being useful.
There’s a huge need for some kind of art to use of embroidery floss in a creative way, that’s not friendship bracelets. It may become tassel necklaces, and I recently found an embroidered picture that must have used up several miles of floss. I don’t have the patience or the urge to make that picture myself or to make other pictures like that, I’m thinking about leaving with floss, because the colors are so pretty. Beyond those ideas, I simply don’t know. I haven’t seen a great deal of truly original work using repurposed, grandmother’s, materials. Stay tuned.
