why embroider?

Story of Mallori Patrice Strait, Vol. 2

The short answer is: Because I know how. My grandmother taught me basic embroidery at age 10. I have memorized only simple stitches—running stitch, back stitch, cross stitch, stem stitch, French knot. Others, I must look up, like the feather stitch outlining the square above for Mallori Patrice Strait in Vol. 2. Maybe surprisingly, I didn’t choose the medium for this project based on its relationship to the subject and purpose. The project stemmed from a desire to bear witness in art to these stories, and no other method came to me. Certainly, it was inspired by a wall hanging I made during the Covid lockdown called Counting the Days, which consists of 56 4” x 4” squares stitched one per day for eight weeks during spring of 2020. And in the back of my mind was the AIDS Memorial Quilt, conceived in 1985 to memorialize people who have died of AIDS. But as this project has developed, I have become aware of how the medium does deepen its impact. Sewing is women’s work. Feminists and feminist artists have long been aware of and manipulated that connection. In one of my favorite examples, British suffragettes, while imprisoned and on hunger strike, collectively embroidered their signatures on handkerchiefs (I pay homage in Vol. 3 to this historical act in the square, stitched on a vintage handkerchief fragment, for Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman). This act combined an act of women’s etiquette--presenting one’s hostess with a handkerchief stitched with one’s signature--with a statement of the suffragettes’ solidarity and strength. Scholar Rozsika Parker argues that “the delicate embroidery declared that the supposed weaker sex was being subjected to the torture of force-feeding—and resisting. They signed their names in the very medium which was considered proof of their frailty and justification for their subjugation” (201). A similar tension between delicacy and violence elicits a smile at the name of a mock organization invented in 1974 by a feminist consciousness raising group in Oregon: “Ladies’ Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society.” I intended to capture this contrast between “feminine” beauty and horror by the contrasting stitches in Mallori’s square. The elegant, winding feather stitch, meant to evoke the natural world she was locked away from for almost five months, contrasts with the raw, crooked tally marks indicating the 147 days she was imprisoned. I am reminded of this intriguing tension between beauty and cruelty whenever someone examines one of my books and says, “It’s beautiful.” I think they are responding to the small size of the books (5” x 5”), their handmade quality, the tiny stitches, and the occasional beading. But of course the stories themselves are awful--devastating accounts of the horrors perpetrated against women and their loved ones by the judges and lawmakers who are responsible for these laws.  So explain to me. Are we fragile females who need men’s protection? If so, why are they waging war on us?