SomeBody, I AM

                   

  What do you see when you look in the mirror? Is there any positive reinforcement in your life? Many people do not hear happy words spoken about them. The work of the Circle of Compassion Prison Project both moved me and shocked me with its' statistics on crime and its roots. I followed this with  research into why and how some peoples lives go so wrong; what happens when children are deprived of touch, the problems of misandry and how teenagers can stay on a good path. 

 My research went far and wide across the internet when I began to think about how we represent the body in our (European) culture and others too. How do we engage with the body in art? How do we show empathy with the bodies of others. This was really just picking up from where I had left off with the Textile Body and the surgical residency.

  I amassed a stack of images of the body in art and went to some extremes in the concept of 'body' ending in ghost sock puppets, knitting patterns of gloves and medieval armour. What was missing was the emotional side of us and the psychological. Music and poetry cover that very well but otherwise it was hard to find many images of 'hurt' or 'loneliness' or more importantly how you can feel several emotions at once and the intersection of those states, the liminal.  

  A book of physical anatomy was not enough and this is why I chose to make this a double sided or concertina book. On the reverse of each 'page' of visceral parts there is an emotion.The first is self doubt, the root of so many problems.

  I chose to embroider a positive phrase with no negatives at all, the brain does strange things with negatives. And I thought how would it be if a young person had to sit and embroider that every day? If they had to slowly say the phrase " I am a good person" as they stitched....it takes an hour.  Then I considered the pressures of being a teenager, the need for affirmation and not getting it. I embroidered the same panel again with the words and meaning back to front and sat them side by side, mirrored, as the first page that you see as you turn the book over.

 Technically it began the real challenge of how the knife wounds related to the other side of each page and how I both disguise and integrate this emotional body into its physical counterpart. The wounds meant something different here so it meant changing how you saw them, if at all.

...and some yielded their own meaning.....

     Why the lettering??? it is from the Bayeux Tapestry and I find it a very human type face. The Tapestry is very long, very beautiful and has a complex history . It also depicts some brutal scenes and has layers of repairs and damage, all of which seem to be appropriate as a metaphor of a human body in trauma. 

    The words have the appearance of being thrown in after the main embroidery was done and so by recreating them myself I had an understanding of who made them and what it was like to make such a piece of work.  They require some skill as they are done by eye and retain an energy not usually found in embroidered letters. This makes for an interesting meditation on the history of literacy amongst women previously assumed to be unable to write...and thus begins a rabbit hole in itself.   

 I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of my sisters with the original research as they are both holistic therapists and know what they are talking about!!!! 

one sister    

two sister                      

see a circle of compassion here

next: the family tree