Rachel Beckman » Weaver & Textile Designer

The Embroidered Sampler: A Story of Discontent

Embroidery Floss, Beads, Iron-on Transfer on Linen, 2010

The assignment for this piece was to reference sampling, and I saw it as an opportunity to work my writing into my work. Historically, creating a sampler was a way for young girls to show what they knew: to demonstrate fine stitching skills, memorization of verses, and as an act itself, a certain obedience. There are many levels at work here, not all of them were entirely successful, but as a break from my regular work I am pleased. The poem in the sampler is not legible but it is central; it comes from a collection of erotic poems I wrote last spring and speaks of the industrial revolution, modernism, attraction and lust in the context of contemporary youth.

Stitching allows for day dreaming, and this became highly narrative for me. My process was to create a character for myself as I stitched, placing myself in the historical context of my work. For me, this was very much about labor, the romantic border is heavily worked, layered, and begins to take over. The border is an act of obedience; the poem is a failed defiance which submits to the finery. As an artist, I have presented a finished piece, but I have left it so my character has not quite finished covering her tracks.  I am concerned as much about process as exploring a visual aesthetic; working on an embroidery frame allowed me to work much like I did with supplementary weft on the loom. Because of this, I anticipated a disconnect between the two distinct halves of the composition, and that remains unresolved.