RUTH MILLER GALLERY
Everything in this collection has been stitched solely by me based on my own ideas. With you in mind, I have striven to make them beautiful as well as thought provoking. These pieces are quite large. Most are life-sized and some are larger than life. In order to make the stitching more visible, I have included a few closeup details. Enjoy.
HAND-EMBROIDERED TAPESTRY PORTRAITS :
From a distance, my tapestries look like paintings. This surprised me because I don't believe I'm a good painter. I feel awkward when covering surfaces with a brush into wide areas of wet color. My favorite way to capture an image is with pencil using a single line to represent the figure. That was how I learned to do it in high school and college. Now, these embroideries teach me to think like a painter. To get over my perceived deficiencies, I mentally plan the switch from a single line to adding shadows and color rather than making random movements and seeing how they coalesce. Random movements work well-enough on paper but create a lumpy surface when yarn and fabric are used. So I have to decide in advance how I will proceed. With each piece, I give myself an assignment in order to learn to see in new ways. One piece might concentrate on compositional skills; another on experiments with color. Still another will reach for an understanding of different skin tones. With darker skin-tones, for example, highlights are more prominent and with lighter skin-tones, shadows call more attention to themselves. Of course my eyes see those things as I go about my normal daily activities. But transferring those observations to paper, let alone yarn, is more difficult. Even though I use photographs to remember bodily proportions, I don't want my tapestries to look like copies of photographs. And even if I go wild with color, I want there to be an understanding that this image is based on a real person.
Click on each image for more information.
From a distance, my tapestries look like paintings. This surprised me because I don't believe I'm a good painter. I feel awkward when covering surfaces with a brush into wide areas of wet color. My favorite way to capture an image is with pencil using a single line to represent the figure. That was how I learned to do it in high school and college. Now, these embroideries teach me to think like a painter. To get over my perceived deficiencies, I mentally plan the switch from a single line to adding shadows and color rather than making random movements and seeing how they coalesce. Random movements work well-enough on paper but create a lumpy surface when yarn and fabric are used. So I have to decide in advance how I will proceed. With each piece, I give myself an assignment in order to learn to see in new ways. One piece might concentrate on compositional skills; another on experiments with color. Still another will reach for an understanding of different skin tones. With darker skin-tones, for example, highlights are more prominent and with lighter skin-tones, shadows call more attention to themselves. Of course my eyes see those things as I go about my normal daily activities. But transferring those observations to paper, let alone yarn, is more difficult. Even though I use photographs to remember bodily proportions, I don't want my tapestries to look like copies of photographs. And even if I go wild with color, I want there to be an understanding that this image is based on a real person.
Click on each image for more information.
Tapestries (left to right on each row)
Duafe (sold)
Flower Too (sold)
The Impossible Dream is the Gateway to Self-love. ......................... 35"H x 25"W
The Evocation and Capture of Aphrodite (Sold)
Flower. ................................................................................................... 66"H x 42"W
Our Lady of Unassailable Wellbeing. ................................................. 20"H x 21"W
Teacup Fishing. ..................................................................................... 58"H x 31"W
Blue Peace (Sold)................................................................................... 36"H x 24"W ?
Congregants (detail image). ................................................................. 20"H x 35"W
Duafe (sold)
Flower Too (sold)
The Impossible Dream is the Gateway to Self-love. ......................... 35"H x 25"W
The Evocation and Capture of Aphrodite (Sold)
Flower. ................................................................................................... 66"H x 42"W
Our Lady of Unassailable Wellbeing. ................................................. 20"H x 21"W
Teacup Fishing. ..................................................................................... 58"H x 31"W
Blue Peace (Sold)................................................................................... 36"H x 24"W ?
Congregants (detail image). ................................................................. 20"H x 35"W
HAND-EMBROIDERED DRAWINGS :
It was a while before it occurred to me to embroider drawings. But I really enjoy the brevity of stitching lines because I get to work through an idea relatively quickly and move onto the next. Except for one, the drawings below are embroidered with cotton-wrapped polyester sewing-machine threads. Some are made with the addition of wool tapestry yarns and one is made solely with yarns. What classifies them as drawings are the large unembroidered spaces in the background. Some are meant to resemble pencil drawings, others pen and ink or paint. In them, I explore concepts like connectedness, self-reliance, fear, safety or self-respect. Whenever I embroider, I strive to increase my understanding of how to see and how to re-create with thread different effects such as reflection, shadow and transparency. One of these drawings is an illuminated manuscript. I paired the text with Bakuba embroidery designs and Ghanaian adinkra symbols that relate to its message ( that we are paying the consequences of relying on leadership to perform tasks we ourselves ought to be handling.)
Click on each image for more information.
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Drawings:
#1.............................."Sisters" .............................................16"H x 20"W
#2, 3.......................... "Unspoken Truths"........................ 20"H x 16"W
#4, 5, 6...................... "Full Circle" ...................................... 47"H x 25"W
#7.............................. "Ain't Nobody's Business".............16"H x 20"W ....................... SOLD
#8.............................. "Trade-off/Stand-off"...................... 24"H x 36"W
It was a while before it occurred to me to embroider drawings. But I really enjoy the brevity of stitching lines because I get to work through an idea relatively quickly and move onto the next. Except for one, the drawings below are embroidered with cotton-wrapped polyester sewing-machine threads. Some are made with the addition of wool tapestry yarns and one is made solely with yarns. What classifies them as drawings are the large unembroidered spaces in the background. Some are meant to resemble pencil drawings, others pen and ink or paint. In them, I explore concepts like connectedness, self-reliance, fear, safety or self-respect. Whenever I embroider, I strive to increase my understanding of how to see and how to re-create with thread different effects such as reflection, shadow and transparency. One of these drawings is an illuminated manuscript. I paired the text with Bakuba embroidery designs and Ghanaian adinkra symbols that relate to its message ( that we are paying the consequences of relying on leadership to perform tasks we ourselves ought to be handling.)
Click on each image for more information.
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Drawings:
#1.............................."Sisters" .............................................16"H x 20"W
#2, 3.......................... "Unspoken Truths"........................ 20"H x 16"W
#4, 5, 6...................... "Full Circle" ...................................... 47"H x 25"W
#7.............................. "Ain't Nobody's Business".............16"H x 20"W ....................... SOLD
#8.............................. "Trade-off/Stand-off"...................... 24"H x 36"W