Orphan

When my Dad died several years ago, his sister cried that now she was an orphan. My Aunt was in her 80's when she said this, and it occurred to me every one of us has our own very personal relationship with someone who has died, whether it be a parent, child, sibling or friend. We have experiences unique to that relationship that no one else can share.

When someone close to us dies, a connection is lost. We are the only one left with those memories, the jokes we shared, the not so funny times we got through.

The thing is, we all have gone through similar experiences, we've all felt loss, grief, pain.

There's a golden thread running through this work, connecting our individual grief with the rest of the world

Boring but Necessary

A lot of the work I make requires boring, repetitive straight stitching.  This creates the background canvas for the fun part, the actual art part.  To while away the time, I try to come up with how long it takes to stitch one row, or one section, or the whole piece.  This background I'm working on now is 8 feet long, and it takes me two minutes to sew each row.

This background I'm working on now is 8 feet long, and it takes me two minutes to sew each row.  At that pace it will take me 6 hours to finish it.  Of course, I can't stand that much mindlessness, so I take frequent breaks,such as this one, for a quick blog.

I've already started on the art part, and here is a little peek at the hand stitching.