EYE OF THE NEEDLE
From roughly 2000-2005, I spent much of my time writing fiction: one novel and several short stories. The period was an intense struggle to break through the mental strictures that had helped me succeed during the time I'd spent as a magazine writer and editor. That work had taught me about structure and deadlines, about how to hone and toss. But writing fiction was nearly the opposite. Rather than directing my ideas into a smaller and tighter funnel, I found myself starting at a point and expanding outward, a sprawling energy that seemed to go on and on. For every word I chose, there were a dozen more possibilities; for every scene I imagined, new ones could be conjured. Falling through this imaginative universe made me acutely aware of how any life--any act in life involving choice--leaves so much possibility behind. I was not ready to do that.
For the next four years, from 2006-2010, I went back through what I'd written and rendered much of it in a series of sewn works of art. I spent two of those years hand sewing two of my stories, all in a desire to acknowledge what had been left out (loose and connecting threads stood in for missing words and ideas). it took another year to cut up the pages of my novel, roll them into tiny scrolls and then place them into nearly 100 hand-sewn cotton boxes. The novel, an amalgamation of fragmented memories, had seemed more suited to a presentation that was physically chopped up. Throughout it all, I took several hours each morning to remember (re-feel?) the emotions I'd felt the day before and then rendered the ups and downs in a series of wall hangings that resemble electrocardiograms.
We human beings would go insane if we were able to feel and experience everything that passes through our lives. But to succeed, to fit in, too much is sometimes left out. This series was about exploring the entire range of that spectrum.
For the next four years, from 2006-2010, I went back through what I'd written and rendered much of it in a series of sewn works of art. I spent two of those years hand sewing two of my stories, all in a desire to acknowledge what had been left out (loose and connecting threads stood in for missing words and ideas). it took another year to cut up the pages of my novel, roll them into tiny scrolls and then place them into nearly 100 hand-sewn cotton boxes. The novel, an amalgamation of fragmented memories, had seemed more suited to a presentation that was physically chopped up. Throughout it all, I took several hours each morning to remember (re-feel?) the emotions I'd felt the day before and then rendered the ups and downs in a series of wall hangings that resemble electrocardiograms.
We human beings would go insane if we were able to feel and experience everything that passes through our lives. But to succeed, to fit in, too much is sometimes left out. This series was about exploring the entire range of that spectrum.