Take Heart
Take Heart is a series that uses embroidery as metaphor and literal representation of the tight, dense layers we build up to protect ourselves from the pain, unpredictability, and exposure of the world. Armor, the earliest piece, sets the terms for what follows. Dense surfaces built up from tight chain stitching on dense velvet drink the light and give a lush, yet impenetrable surface. Radiating layers of feather-like forms reach outward creating a tension between bristling warning and open embrace. At the center of each piece sits a glistening core, reading as a nexus that is at once a heart, nest, belly — potent and exposed at the same time. Viewed as a whole the series progresses through a sequence where heaviness gives way to dispersion and lightness with openwork lace and looser threading. Increasing containment gives way to an easing of boundaries. In the last work, Release, threads leave the frame entirely representing release.
Repurposed antique frames and velvet grounds borrow the language of the reliquary. What was concealed is treated as worth keeping and honoring, and then, finally, as something to let go.
