Welcome to eMbroidery, a series of interviews with male embroiderers. This month, Stewart Easton.

Name:

Stewart Easton

Location:

Coventry, West Midlands, UK

Main embroidery medium:

Hand embroidery

Noteworthy projects or pieces:

Four Tragic Tales

How did you come to be an embroiderer?

Whilst studying MA Illustration and Animation at Coventry University I had an experimental module where I could work/ experiment in any medium as long as it fit my research. At the time I was researching Folk Art so embroidery kind of fit my brief at the time.

What does it mean to you?

Embroidery allows me to make work which is unexpected (for a gent) and adds a certain dynamism and angle to the work.

Where do you like to work?

I have a couple of cushions which are placed in front of my record player in the back room. Once a record is on and I’m all set up time tends to stop.

How do people respond to you as a male embroiderer?

On the whole it’s a positive bag. People tend to tell you that they think more men should sew and how great it is that I sew. Though to me it’s nothing strange it’s no different to using pen and ink.

Who inspires you?

Wow! Clare Rojas is a massive influence I absolutely adore her work. I love Grandma Moses, Henry Darger, Grayson Perry. Man, I could write a massive list here….

How or where did you learn you learn how to stitch or sew?

I taught myself how to sew out of a tiny little book with 32 stitches in it. Though I only use 3 and really don’t want to learn anymore.

Are your current images new ones or have you used them before?

A lot of my stitch works are reworks of my pen illustrations. I tend to go over old drawings I have made and transfer them in stitch due to this my embroidery is very illustrative.

How has your life shaped or influenced your work?

I always wanted to be different and not thought of as a typical ‘Boy’.  This wanting to be different has subconsciously fed into my desire to use embroidery as a medium for making art.

What are or were some of the strongest currents from your influences you had to absorb before you understood your own work?

This is an on-going process and really depends on the project I am working on. For instance with my Four Tragic Tales project it wasn’t until almost a month after the work was installed in the space that I realised that I had wanted to make a concept album in stitch. It’s the time away from the work that I get to see the different strands and links to other works be it links to my own or to others. The previous smaller projects tended to be projects where I was teaching myself the craft of stitch and storytelling.

Do formal concerns, such as perspective and art history, interest you?

Not as much as tradition interests me. I’m more concerned with the feelings which tradition evokes within me. The maker sat stitching by the fireside; work songs and communities rituals interest me more than the social history which fed into a certain piece of work. I know that the social history is all of the above but it’s the dirt more than the learned which gets me going.

What do your choice of images mean to you?

They mean everything really. I try to make work which I would like to see myself.  Doesn’t always work that way though!

Do you look at your work with an eye toward it like what can and can’t be visually quoted? In other words what you will or won’t cut out?

With each piece of work which I have usually made one or two attempts which I am not happy with. It will usually be something as daft as the weight of a line or the angle of a hand. To others these inadequacies are not there but I know that they are. Due to this the pieces shown I’m happy with.

Do you have any secrets in your work you will tell us?

As I said a lot of my stitch work comes from old illustrations. These Illustrations usually stem from my times of freaking out with worry about some lame obstacle….. I won’t tell more I’ll let the folk who see the work try and figure what’s been worrying me ha ha ha!

How do you hope history treats your work?

As a tidy stitcher who looked like a tramp!

…..or he was bloody good

…..or the dude could sew and draw!

Where can we find you and your work?

I’m currently showing in two shows at present. The first is a solo show of large scale contemporary style tapestries. It’s called Four Tragic Tales and is as the title suggests four rather sad stories, each spanning across three meters.

The second is part of a group show in the Lake District UK called “WOW: Wonder of Wool and the Art of Knit and Stitch“. It’s part of a show based around wool. I have one piece in the show a hand embroidery using wool. It has some super cool wool artists there.

Here’s the link.

http://www.rheged.com/wow-wonder-wool-and-art-knit-and-stitch-0

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eMbroidery was created with the support and wisdom of the magnificent Bascom Hogue.

Leighlalovesyou is doing a very interesting art project about her experience as a twin.

See the entire set here, and be sure to check out all of Leigh’s work in her Flickr photostream.

Welcome to eMbroidery, a series of interviews with male embroiderers. This month, Robert Marbury.

Name: Robert Marbury

Location: Baltimore, MD

Main embroidery medium: Cross Stitch

Noteworthy projects or pieces: Cute Vandalism

How did you come to be an embroiderer? I was partnering on a project documenting bathroom graffiti in cross stitch, with a fellow artist named Jes Schrom (http://jschrom.com/) , when we were both in Minneapolis. It was a great project because there is so much material out there and we both approached it from a different perspective. As for the actual act of cross stitching, it seemed pretty familiar. Growing up, I was a big latch hook fan. I did work on a series of latch hook pillows of Kiss for a friend and I almost lost my mind with the process. Cross Stitch doesn’t drive me as nuts.

Welcome to eMbroidery, a series of interviews with male embroiderers. This month we bring you six of the best interviews thus far in case you missed them:

• Walter Bruno Brix
• Danny Mansmith
• Mark Bieraugal aka FilmResearch
• Tod Hensley
• Bren Ahearn
• William Schaff

Welcome to eMbroidery, a series of interviews with male embroiderers. This month, Paddy Hartley.

Name: Paddy Hartley

Location: Dalston, East London.

Main embroidery medium: I use Bernina Designer digital embroidery software. I used to apologise for being a ‘digital’ embroiderer, but haven’t for a long time as it’s a whole other skill set in itself.

Noteworthy projects or pieces: All of the pieces I made as part of Project Façade, my own personal response to the medical records of facially injured WW1 servicemen. In particularly, the pieces about the lives of servicemen William Spreckley and Henry Ralph Lumley.

How did you come to be an embroiderer? Through necessity. Embellishing the military uniforms I work with representing the facially injured seemed logical for many reasons. The surgery they underwent involved stitching the outer fabric of the body, the skin. In addition, the servicemen who underwent multiple surgeries where hospitalized for months, years at a time, so rehabilitation played a major part in their recovery, many of whom took up embroidery. Up to that point Id never considered embroidery as a medium I could use but it lent itself to the work well.

What does it mean to you? Throughout the making period of Project Façade it was an appropriate means to an end. I had a 1-year making window in which to embellish the 16 uniforms with which I was working, to embroider clear narrative in both images and text. At the start of the project I had never embroidered by hand, let alone digitally, so getting to grips with the software and translating it to fabric was a massive learning curve.

Where do you like to work? Wherever I can concentrate, increasingly I’m finding that I need silence to work. No email, no mobile. Bliss!

How do people respond to you as a male embroiderer? Usually with a raised eyebrow, but then with fascination because of the subject of the work, particularly when who you think the least like people engage with the work. Like the guys in their 40s/50s who look like builders, being dragged around a group exhibition by their wives which featured some of my work. On more than one occasion I’d see these guys pacing the space like the walking dead until they saw my work and they could engage with the work because of the subject of the work which just happened to be embroidered. You can engage anyone with using any media or process so long as they have an interest in the subject.

Who inspires you? Right now, the students I meet around the UK when I’m guest lecturing. With the phenomenal rise in tuition fees, you have got to be committed to what you do if studying the subject Id going to land you in such eye-watering debt. Arts education and where you get it in the UK is undergoing an incredible change right now and in the years to come as many creative industries courses will close as a result of students being unwilling to get into such massive debt for a qualification in an industry which essentially doesn’t exist. As an example my own training in Ceramics is becoming an unviable subject for Universities to offer so what was a healthy number of under and post graduate courses has become a handful. I think we are going to see a very different breed of artist, craftsperson and designer emerge over the next few years in the UK. Ultra ambitious with a very astute commercial eye and many of whom will not be University educated and they are all going to give us a real run for our money!

How or where did you learn you learn how to stitch or sew? Im totally self-taught but if I need advice, I have friends who I can fling the odd question to if Im scratching my head, but usually, I can work out a solution. It may not be a conventional solution to a problem, but if it works for what Im doing, that’s fine by me.

How has your life shaped or influenced your work? It’s very much the other way around, what I do has made me the person I am and each project I work on changes me (for the better I hope) just that little bit more.

What are or were some of the strongest currents from your influences you had to absorb before you understood your own work? In making the work about the facially injured servicemen for Project Façade, memories of the men shared by relatives was a revelation, but had to be handled with immense sensitivity. I learned to not include all the gory detail, that’s sensationalist and exploitative and disrespectful to the men and their families. So I learned to distill their stories down to fragments which the viewer has to piece together.

It would have been easy to have embellished the uniform pieces with lots of images of the subject with his graphic injury and images of surgery. That would be crass. I kept the use of such images down to a minimum and often placed them discreetly on the piece.

Do formal concerns, such as perspective and art history, interest you? I cant say I have much interest in art or art history so it doesn’t really play a part in what I do. I relate to the subject of the work directly rather than looking at how others may have dealt with similar subject matter or material. I used to feel guilty for saying Im not much of an art lover. Saying you are an art lover is like saying ‘Im a TV lover’…I like some art, just like I like some TV. Most of what is around is dross, lazy and badly made, but there is the occasional gem which sparkles every now and then.

Do you have any secrets in your work you will tell us? Yes, when a piece feels like it needs a little something more, take something away instead.

How do you hope history treats your work? Kindly, if it is remembered at all.

Where can we find you and your work?

• www.paddyhartley.com for an overview of all my work over the past 20 years including Project Façade highlights.
• www.patrickianhartley.com for my fashion design, Face Corset work.
• www.projectfacade.com for the Project Façade work in its entirety.

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eMbroidery was created with the support and wisdom of the magnificent Bascom Hogue.

Welcome to eMbroidery, a series of interviews with male embroiderers. This month, Colin Holder aka Holder of Anime.

Name: Colin Holder aka Holder of Anime

Location: London, UK

Main embroidery medium: Gaming based Cross-stitch.

Noteworthy projects or pieces: My ‘Pocket Fighter’ Project, most people would know this project through the Chibi Street Fighter images of Ryu and Chun-Li and also the Akuma graveyard scene.

How did you come to be an embroiderer? I’ve always done anime and manga based drawing projects in the past, but gave up years ago. While on holiday with my girlfriend, we came across a book called ‘Manga Cross Stitching’ (by Helen McCarthy), and she bought it for herself. I’ve always sat back and watched her do really cool projects involving knitting and other crafts, so I thought I’d give it a go. At the time she didn’t know I used to do loads of manga drawings, so the two things quickly combined. Once I did my first project, I decided to design my own and it became natural that my love of gaming and anime would influence my work.

What does it mean to you? For my whole life I’ve always struggled to find a focus for my creative side as I’m easilly distracted. I’ve started so many projects which have just ended up unfinished and dumped in the corner of my room to be forgotten about. The good thing about cross stitching is that once I finished a few, I framed them and put them on the wall so they were always there to be seen. A few people have said that I should post them online so other people could see them as well, then it all pretty much took off from there.  I love the fact that I’ve managed to keep focus on this for over two years, receiving messages from people saying that my work’s inspired them to get into cross-stitching has helped me to do that.

Where do you like to work? Because I’m easilly distracted, I like to find a place to stitch where there are no distractions at all. I put all the cushions on the floor and make it as mellow as possible. I use TV programmes as a timer, so if its a half hour program I’ll give myself a 10×10 square target and that way i know that if I’m not half way through when the adverts start I need to speed up.

How do people respond to you as a male embroiderer? It’s a really mixed bag to be honest. There are times when people are impressed that I’m a guy who’s stitches, and there are others who assume that I’m gay for some strange reason. For every 10 people that like the fact that I’m a male stitcher, there’s always one or two that do or say something that I don’t agree with. For example, at a recent event I had my Akuma picture there, and there were some people who were impressed not only by me being a guy that stitches, but also doing images that are themed towards things men are interested in as well as women, such as gaming. Then there are other people who say that this doesn’t really fit in the stitching genre, and turn my pictures over to inspect them as if they’re not good enough. I feel that people shouldn’t focus on whether it’s by a man or a woman, that’s why I like the way people put pictures of their stitcing online. Because then people appreciate the image on how good it is, not on who made it.
I feel that at times I need to defend myself not only for being male but also because of my age. It got to a point that I started stitching a piece with the words “Why Not?!”, so I can show people who ask why I stitch.

Who inspires you? Most of my inspiration comes from all the pictures uploaded online. Seeing people do large projects or projects that people don’t associate with traditional stitching is what keeps me going. I’ve never really liked the traditional style of things that you see in most craft stores, and it was books like the one that we bought that showed me that you can create good stuff with your own ideas. Growing up gaming and watching a lot of anime is where I was inspired to do the pictures I do now, particularly anime artists such as Akira Toriyama.

How or where did you learn to stitch or sew? I originally learned the basics from the book and from my girlfriend. Going to events has taught me little techniques to improve my work and to finish it to better standards. It’s not easy to find meetings of cross stitchers in the same way as other crafts, which is a shame because I’ve found it’s a good and simple craft to get into.

Are your current images new ones or have you used them before? All my pieces have been one offs, but are all influenced massively by the games they’re taken from. I like to use alternative ways of seeing famous characters. For example Ryu and Chun-Li aren’t often portrayed in the cute, childlike form that I stitched them in because of the aggressive nature of the game that they originate from.

How has your life influenced your work? As I’ve said previously, gaming and anime have been my main influence for the images I’ve chosen. To put a spin on it, my work has influenced my life in that if I was shown cross-stitching, or any other craft three years ago, I wouldn’t have found it interesting. Now I go out of my way to go to events and see what people do with their craft. I used to draw and paint a lot, and I always used  as many vibrant colours as possible. I like that in stitching you’re limited to using colours you can buy as threads, so you need to be creative in which colours you use.

Do formal concerns, such as perspective and art history, interest you? I see anime as an art form, and I love finding out the history of who created the original image and how their thought shaped the original image that they made. For example having female characters coloured using a pastel palette in their design, makes them look feminine but in a strong way. In terms of perspective, I noticed that the angles used in manga, anime and gaming are quite different to other forms of art, so I like to use images that have quite interesting angles in them.

What do your choice of images mean to you? They’re characters that I grew up as a fan of. Most people grow up listening to music that influence them for the rest of their lives. So for example if someone hears a song from when they’re young, they’re reminded of what was happening at that time. In a similar way, Sonic the Hedgehog is a gaming icon, as he started off as a character in a game, and has now crossed over into things that I’m making today.

Do you look at your work with an eye toward it like what can and can’t be visually quoted?  In other words what you will or won’t cut out? In work that I’m still designing, I like to use characters that are off-centre. Also, in my Akuma picture I realised that including all the details on every grave made the picture look too busy. So instead I gave detail to one or two graves, and made the others just a single colour, but it still had the same graveyard effect.  Having lots of detail off centre, such as the wheel on the right of the picture gives people more things to focus on than just the characters.

Do you have any secrets in your work you will tell us? I don’t have any secrets, but I like to use colours that look like they’re one colour, but they’re completely different when you look at them closely. The perfect example would be a Pokemon patch I did for a charity quilt which had an image of Onyx on it. Originally it was coloured four shades of grey, but I used pink, green and purple to give it my personal twist on an existing image. People haven’t realised until I’ve told them that there are in fact, no shades of grey on that image.

How do you hope history treats your work? I just want people to remember them as good images, and doing something interesting with a traditional craft.

Where can we find you and your work? People can find me on internet forums for cross-stitching under the username ‘Holder of Anime’. I also have my personal blog which is http://www.holderofanimestuff.wordpress.com Feel free to check it out and subscribe if you want to. I don’t update it regularly as my pieces are on such a large scale, but I try to keep it up to date with what I’m doing.

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eMbroidery was created with the support and wisdom of the magnificent Bascom Hogue.

Welcome to eMbroidery, a series of interviews with male embroiderers. This month, William Schaff.

Name: William Schaff

Location: Rhode Island, U.S.A.

Main embroidery medium: Cotton thread on stretched cotton fabric.

How did you come to be an embroiderer? I sort of stumbled into it, with no grand thoughts other than I knew I wanted to give it a go. Really, it was because I was watching too much television and I felt I should be doing something while watching all of this TV.

What does it mean to you? It has come to mean more to me as time has gone on. At first, like I said it was more of a way to pass time, but as I have gone on doing them, and been exposed to other contemporary embroiders I have really come to see that it has its own place as a medium that I can find a release that I can’t in other mediums I work in.

It is as if the threads bound together go on to create something a line of the pen, pencil, or brush just can’t for me. It also makes me think of my grandmother, mother, and other people in the past who have spent their time in concentration making something by hand to add beauty to their world. They weren’t calling it “art” necessarily — if anything they would have laughed off the idea they were making art — but yet hours were spent in creating something for their surroundings.

So even when my topics aren’t beautiful, I still feel happy being a part of this tradition.

Where do you like to work? There is no one set place. This is part of what I like about embroidering. If the piece is transportable, I will take it with me where I can to work on it. I have done the work in my studio, in bars, in cars,on planes, outdoors, indoors..all over the place really.

I will say, it is often interesting to do this at the bar across the street from me. The regulars will come up, often relating stories of people they have known that have made embroideries, other times just looking puzzled by why a guy in a bar is doing an embroidery. Usually the themes throw them a bit, as well. I remember one time working on an embroidery of a prison rape scene and the bar tender asked me why I was doing that. I responded, “Someone should”. He thought about it for a second and just kind of walked off. So I think I won that discussion.

How do people respond to you as a male embroiderer? As might be expected, the reaction varies. I have seen people marvel (but at that point I don’t know how much it has to do with me being a man) to others kind of laughing at me. But even those who may laugh, tend to step back a bit when they see what is being done. Sometimes out of appreciation, sometimes out of a pure puzzlement at the content.

I used to be the head of security at this night club. We were all having a meeting, and I had brought my embroidery with me to work on during the meeting. One of my fellow security staff started to kind of rib me for working on an embroidery. he said, “My grandmother does embroidery”, in that sort of goofy way that I guess I should have felt belittled being compared to a grandmother. I simply commented how mine did, too, and how I thought my grandmother was really a neat person.

I don’t know what his final thought was, but that kind of ended that there. I also remember one reviewer for a book my work was included in refering to me as a “token male embroiderer”, which cracked me up. I had never been called a “token” anything.

Who inspires you? So many folks..too many to name. In the field of embroidery, I am a bit embarrassed to admit I don’t really know any of the names I probably should.

I look around every so often on the web at other folks embroidering, but I seem to seldom remember their names (I have a horrible memory) if their work has captured me. When I see good work, though, that inspires me to be better myself at what it is I am trying to do. I look through Flickr.com quite often, and one person who has really caught my attention with her work is a gal named Penny Nickels. But I fear I am so busy with this project or that, I don’t look around at as much art as I possibly should.

How or where did you learn you learn how to stitch or sew? My mom and I used to do things like cross stitching when I was really little, and hook rugs and the such, but mostly I guess you could say I am self taught. This isn’t a source of pride, or anything, I just think of each stitch as a stroke from a pencil, and that directs me as to which way the thread should be going and the like. Sometimes it works better than others.

Are your current images new ones or have you used them before? Some of the images I have embroidered were based on other drawings I have done (“Fly me to the moon” for example was also a piece I did as a scratchboard), but mostly the images I create as embroideries are made just as embroideries. That said, I could see other pieces i have done as embroideries, and would be curious to try my hand at them.

How has your life shaped or influenced your work? Mostly by giving me the desire and the where with all to try different things…see what comes of it. I have tried to spend a life observing and asking questions. I hope this shows up in a lot of the work I have done, both embroidery and non-embroidered pieces. I have been super fortunate to be around very creative and supportive people. So much so, that whn I want to try something, the phrase “Why not?” comes up more than anything else .

What are or were some of the strongest currents from your influences you had to absorb before you understood you own work?  If I am understanding the question correctly, the strongest currents come from feeling challenged by things. Whether it be why things happen the way they do in our society, or by my own Christian faith. The latter is why I sometimes find myself doing simpler, more iconic religious figures. They become these things that keep me focused on my faith while I work, reworking questions or thoughts on it.

Do formal concerns, such as perspective and art history, interest you? They do, but they only sometimes play into my embroidered work. I tend to be quite happy with distorting things, and find myself doing that even in the imagery I use for the embroideries.

What do your choice of images mean to you? Well, like I said above, with the religious imagery, it is really a sort of meditation on my faith. But with my other imagery, I try to pick things one might not normally see in an embroidery knowing that by doing it as an embroidery, it may stand out even more. Then there are all the patches I have made for different members of The What Cheer? Brigade. A renegade brass band out of Providence Rhode Island. I would do patches for our jackets, and each of those would incorporate some imagery that the member I was making it for felt represented them.

Do you have any secrets in your work you will tell us? I don’t know how good this is to admit, but I used to be a heavy drinker. I have recently had to cut out my intake and let me tell you… I find it a lot more difficult do stitch after stitch without the whiskey. Don’t get me wrong, I still love seeing it all come together, but especially when filling in a large area….I guess my secret was whiskey. It made doing thousands of stitches for 8 hours straight more much bearable.

How do you hope history treats your work? I get a kick out of the idea that they even recognize it! If they do, it would be nice to think that they see a sincerity and an earnest attempt to converse with people in it. That said, I don’t think anything about my work is particularly groundbreaking, so I don’t know if I would ever make the history books.

Where can we find you and your work? On the web you can find it at: www.williamschaff.com which will bring you to my flickr site. I am a bit too much of a goof when it comes to knowing how to run and keep updated a regular website, so flickr has proven to be really usuable for me. There is a whole set on flickr of just embroidery at http://www.flickr.com/photos/samsa1973/sets/1247831/

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eMbroidery was created with the support and wisdom of the magnificent Bascom Hogue.

Welcome to eMbroidery, a series of interviews with male embroiderers. This month, Bren Ahearn. Name: Bren Ahearn (Full name: Brendan Daniel Ahearn). Apparently I was named after St. Brendan, the navigator. My middle name is after my uncle Dan, who passed away at age 33. I’m of half Irish and half Sicilian ancestry. Location: Sacramento, California, USA. I was born in New Jersey and have also lived in Philadelphia, Chicago, Monterey (CA), Tokyo, San Francisco, Berkeley (CA) and Los Angeles. Main embroidery medium: Base fabric: mostly Aida cloth. I have also used linen for a few samplers, and I’ve used found objects (e.g., molded plastic basket, cafeteria tray, flip flop, envelope) for my manmades. The appeal of Aida cloth to me is not only the ease with which I can stitch, but also its lowly status among some crafters — I like to irk the fabric snobs. Floss: DMC or Finca/Presencia floss for smaller pieces; 5/2 cotton for larger-scale cross stitching. Noteworthy projects or pieces: This is a difficult question to answer because a number of my pieces take forever to create, and I’m typically sick of each piece by the time I’m finished. You and the X Stitch family have graciously posted a few images of my work on your site over the years (a few samplers, a manmade and a cage fighter image in The Cutting and Stitching Edge in 2009; a few samplers in Penny Nickels’ Needle Exchange in 2010; and a large-scale cage fighter in Bridget Franckowiak’s Showtime in 2010.) I guess this means that these pieces spoke to you, Penny and Bridget, so I’ll explain a little bit about each. Cage Fighters: When I was in my first year of my graduate program, I was channel surfing and came across cage fighting (AKA mixed martial arts). I saw that these men were beating each other to a pulp; however, I also noticed that they were half nude and sometimes holding each other in compromising homoerotic holds. I then decided to stitch on a sewing machine what I saw. There also was a more practical side to my production of the initial small-scaled (9”X12”) series – it was the end of my first year in school, and I needed to fill a hole on the wall for my year-end review. Little did I know that these quick gestures would strike a chord with viewers. I created larger scale versions (44”X60”) in 2009, and one of these large-scale versions is in Bridget’s post noted above. Here’s an image of a few of the large-scale fighters in a gallery setting, in order to give you an idea of the scale. Samplers: in 2007 I had a chance to examine a collection of old samplers, and I became intrigued at how samplers were used to educate girls in the ABCs, needle arts, etc. I then thought about how I have been educated to perform my gender and started to create samplers documenting this experience. The red sampler in the Cutting (& Stitching) Edge and Needle Exchange posts above is based on a traditional ABC sampler, and the sampler documenting my marriage with Doug Brown is based on the wedding sampler format. I’ve also created a sampler documenting my gendered feminine work experience and how this experience relates to my place in society, rate of pay, etc. Last year I created Sampler 6 (which explores pussy-ness a bit more in depth than the red ABC sampler) and Sampler 7 (which explores cage fighting a bit more. The sporno quote on Sampler 7 is by Mark Simpson.) I’m working on a new sampler about the time in first grade when I learned the hard way that a boy shouldn’t possess a lunchbox with a floral pattern. In addition to exploring samplers and cage fighters, I also dabble with the theme of gays in the military. For some reason, in the USA there’s some rhetoric that having gays serve in the military will destroy morale, etc. On Navy Shirt #1 I’ve embroidered the word “Cocksucker” where the nametag would go. Tent Model #1 is a model army tent complete with pink lamé lining and an image of 1990s gay porn star, Aiden Shaw. (I believe that the Sex and the City character of the same name was named after Aiden Shaw.) In these pieces I wanted to call attention to stereotypes and also the pathologization of gays by some people. I’m also dabbling with repeat pattern, and this is one repeat of a plaid fabric with flowers composed of baseballs and American footballs. How did you come to be an embroiderer? I was primarily a weaver when I re-entered graduate school in 2007. At that time I decided to explore embroidery because I thought it would be quicker than weaving and because I thought it would allow for more avenues of exploration, from a gender studies standpoint. My husband has pointed out that it’s ironic that some of my embroidered pieces take just as long, if not longer, to complete as my weavings did. As some background to my weaving history, in 2001 or so I went to a Kente cloth show at the Oakland Museum of California and became captivated by the pattern possibilities of Ghanaian strip weavings. So, I began weaving thin strips and then sewing them together. In Shibori Strip Weaving #2, I dyed the strips using indigo and Japanese resist techniques. In the detail, you can see Hello Kitty, which emerges in later works. Strip Weaving #4 is a resist-dyed triple weave strip weaving. Triple weave is a process during which the weaver weaves three layers simultaneously. During the weaving process, the weaver can pull up different layers to the top of the fabric. (One of the other layers remains on the bottom, and the final layer remains sandwiched between the other two). After I wove the strips, I pleated the strips and then dyed them in fiber-reactive dye. The cotton threads took the dye, and the polyester threads didn’t. This piece put me over the top and made me not want to weave. It probably would’ve been easier just to piece something like this, rather than weave it.

What does it mean to you? Embroidery is a connection to embroiderers from the past. In The Subversive Stitch, Rozsika Parker notes that in medieval times there were male and female embroiderers, but during subsequent eras embroidery became gendered feminine and the male history was erased. My use of cross stitch is very symbolic for me. The Xs can symbolize a signature, perhaps the signature of anonymous stitchers who are not mentioned in history. Perhaps the Xs can signify the erasing/changing of history by historians. Also, cross stitch is a binary system, composed of two crossing elements, and cross stitch rendering reminds me of computer imagery, which is the result of another binary system. I wasn’t thinking of this when I decided to use cross stitch, but one could say that on a more metaphorical level, the binary cross stitch system reflects the subject matter which I explore – gender and politics. I feel that in the US many people think in neat, binary categories, e.g., male vs. female and democrat vs. republican, and that the country is very polarized. It is my hope that my artwork will get people to stop thinking in competitive binaries and to open a dialogue to begin healing. Also, in some circles in contemporary American society, embroidery by a male is a subversive act. I view is as a way to get people to think about “appropriate” gender activities, which is related to the binary notion of gender mentioned above. Where do you like to work? Doug and I have a second bedroom which we had called the studio; however, I’ve never really embroidered in that room. I typically embroider in the living room or dining room. When I was in school, I embroidered on the train. How do people respond to you as a male embroiderer? When I was going to school, I would get on the train at the first stop. When I was stitching on fabric, I noticed that females would sit next to me, but males tended to sit next to me only if there were no other seats open. I remember one time this guy finally sat next to me, and I was stitching the word “Cocksucker” on the Navy shirt. I chuckled to myself. I also noticed that when I was on the train stitching the manmades on hard, found objects, men approached me to ask what I was doing. Perhaps my performance had become more masculine since it wasn’t on cloth, and wasn’t as threatening to some men. Also, perhaps this activity on mass-produced objects was more in the art, rather than domestic soft craft, realm and was safer. (I won’t go into art vs. craft, commodity, etc. here.) Who inspires you? This question is a political minefield. I’ve decided not to mention artists who inspire me because I know I’ll forget someone I should’ve mentioned. I will mention, however, a few theorists, educators and journalists who have shaped my thinking. One is Judith Butler, who writes about gender as performance – we get rewarded by society for appropriate performance of our gender, and punished for inappropriate performance. An example of this might be the calling of a boy who isn’t hypermasculine a “sissy.” Another theorist (and artist) is Lacey Jane Roberts, who proposes that crafters should use queer activists’ strategies of reclamation, reapppropriation and dis-identification to give themselves agency. In my thesis I attempt to explain Roberts’ theory a bit. (FYI: Robert’s publication is Lacey Jane Roberts, “Put your Thing Down, Flip it, and Reverse It: Reimagining Craft Identities Using Tactics of  Queer Theory, MA Thesis, California College of the Arts, published in Sightlines (2007): 185, 187. A different version of Robert’s article appears in Maria Elena Buszek’s new book, Extra/Ordinary: Craft and Contemporary Art) I’m also grateful to Julia Bryan-Wilson for her research with queer craft, and to Maria Elena Buzsek, who was one of the early crafty curators/researchers during this current wave. One of my teachers, Ana Lisa Hedstrom, taught me not to obsess so much on getting a dye color perfect. She told me that if a tie is paired with the right color shirt, it’ll look great. Also, my advisor at San Francisco State University, Vic De La Rosa, taught me to be intuitive and to believe in myself. I’m also inspired by the many bloggers, like you, who notice new exciting talent and gets the info out there. Thanks for seeing to it that we don’t work in a vacuum. How or where did you learn you learn how to stitch or sew? I taught myself to cross stitch from Connie G. Barwick via her cross stitch postings on about.com. I learned to weave at the Barnsdall Art Center in Hollywood, CA – I had gone to the art center to sign up for a pottery class, but I took weaving instead when the pottery class was full. My family is very textile-y. My mother quilts, my sister makes costumes for local theatre productions, and my brother makes the costumes for the puppets he also makes. So, this random choice was a natural one too. Are your current images new ones or have you used them before? Everything’s been done before. I appropriate from all over the place – from old samplers to Hello Kitty to American footballs and baseballs to cage fighters from TV. I also recycle these images over and over again. My newest sampler will be in a similar format to my earlier samplers, but the flowers will be my flowers with baseball centers and American football petals. I’ve also recently made a manmade that references my Scrabble playing youth. I’ve been working with some new imagery, as part of a series called “Media Studies.” So far I’ve been exploring with Playgirl magazine and gun imagery. How has your life shaped or influenced your work? I think that being a man and being gay has definitely influenced my work. Since it’s not appropriate for American men to embroider, I hope that my embroidering in public makes people question the validity of gender roles. My being male has also given me content for exploration. I also feel that being gay and rejected by certain members of American society gives me freedom to comment on certain societal norms, e.g., marriage, and to raise a dialogue. For example, my wedding sampler was in a recent show at Evolve the Gallery in Sacramento, California, USA, and one of the gallerists said to me that a person who came to the show could appreciate the stitchwork, but couldn’t approve of my lifestyle. In this day and age some people still think that sodomy is sin. Do formal concerns, such as perspective and art history, interest you? Interesting question. When I was admitted into grad school for art, I said to Doug, “I guess I have to learn how to draw now.” Well, I never learned how to draw. I have done some craft history research, as is evidenced in my samplers. As I mention above, most of my work is appropriation. What do your choice of images mean to you? Some of my images (e.g., American footballs and baseballs) represent orthodox American masculinity, however, I’m learning that masculinity is not so cut-and-dried, and men perform their gender differently in different situations. Some of my images (e.g., cage fighters locked in a missionary position) represent the contradiction of the taboo of homosexuality among some American athletes with the homoeroticism of half-nude sweaty men exercising. Some of my images (e.g., Hello Kitty) represent pop culture, kitsch and gendered feminine imagery. Do you look at your work with an eye toward it like what can and can’t be visually quoted?  In other words what you will or won’t cut out? Over the years there are a few pieces I wish I re-worked before I released them, e.g., my Tent #1 – I just would’ve sewn a pink lamé lining and then called it a day, rather than putting all of this gay imagery in it. I actually like the model, referenced above, better than the full-sized tent, but I think that even the model shouldn’t have imagery. I’m thinking of doing a more simplified version. I’m not sure how I feel about cutting out – I wasn’t so sure about releasing the earlier machine-stitched cagefighters because the rendering was janky, but people seemed to respond to them. Sometimes people may respond to some quick gesture that I was going to write off. Do you have any secrets in your work you will tell us? The wedding sampler has the double wedding ring border, which is a traditional border showing two interlocked wedding rings. The two rings in the bottom right corner are both green, rather than one green and one gold, and thus appears like an “8.” This is in reference to California Proposition 8, which limited marriage to a man and a woman. The date stitched on the bottom is the date that Proposition 8 was passed. How do you hope history treats your work? I hope that people now and in the future will engage in a dialogue about the confining nature of gender behavioural norms. Where can we find you and your work? My work will is in Joetta Maue’s and Drucilla Pettibone’s current shows, and might be in Jennifer Hunold’s show, depending on her final curatorial vision. I’ve learned in my years that a curator’s denial of my piece is not statement about my work or my self worth. It’s difficult to curate cohesive shows; I don’t know how curators do it and stay sane. I will have a solo show during June 2011, at Evolve the Gallery in Sacramento, California, USA. Michelle and Brady Blakeley of Evolve are my northern California representatives. They’ve really worked with me a lot and pushed my presentation to the next level. They also talk about the practical side of the business, e.g., I need to create some more quick, low cost items in order to appeal to not-as-rich collectors who are entering the market. They’re also talking about how I should brand myself. I’m grateful to them for all they’re teaching me.

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eMbroidery was created with the support and wisdom of the magnificent Bascom Hogue.

Welcome to eMbroidery, a series of interviews with male embroiderers. This month, Tod Hensley.

Name: Tod Hensley
Location: Brooklyn, New York City
Main embroidery medium: Embroidery floss = regular, metallic, transparent.

How did you come to be an embroiderer?
I was working on small collages and decided to use thread as a way of joining (by stitching) unfinished parts and pieces that I didn’t think were finished. It was like I was ‘suturing’ parts of something together like a doctor puts together broken skin. Joining the different parts worked to help finish the collages, but also the stitches themselves added an aesthetical element that I liked. I quickly became more and more interested in the possibilities of what could be done by using just stitches for the entire piece. Soon I was doing that. I realized it was embroidery that I was doing. However I took the approach that I was using the thread like I was using paint. I still feel that way.

What does it mean to you?
It meant that I could return to using certain imagery that I had lost years ago, back when I was painting. It’s also limiting, which helps me finish things. Oil painting, for example, is so versatile that there are too many possibilities and I find I just experiment but get nothing finished. I also find the process of stitching calming and peace inducing.

Where do you like to work?
When I’m home I work on my floor, my apartment is very small. I bought a beautiful, handmade rag rug from a woman in Amish country. Its very comfortable to lie on (I switch between lying and sitting up), and all the colors and textures help me stay inspired. In the nicer weather I pack up my floss and hoop and head out into my neighborhood. We have a huge park that I have spent many hours embroidering in. There are also little spots all over the place – an outside bench at a coffee shop, on the curb during a street festival while a live band plays. Sometimes I trek to other neighborhoods looking for new places to sit and sew. I’m always ‘sewing and moving’, ‘sewing and moving’ on these outdoor excursions. Of course, in the winter time I pretty much stay inside.
Then there is an art/craft group I attend monthly.

How do people respond to you as a male embroiderer?
They never mention anything about me being a male. They just respond to my embroidery.  I have shown my embroidery to a lot of people, most of them women, but the subject of my gender never comes up.

Who inspires you?
Basquiat was probably my biggest artist influence. There are others –  other neo-expressionists, surrealists, folk artists, and other artists of all types throughout recorded history -  too many to name. Let’s see, recently I’ve been inspired by Brian Wilson (the musician), Bruce Bickford & Jan Svankmajer (animators). Last month I got inspired by a woman who was singing in a Peter Greenaway film. I was inspired a week ago by watching the Peter Jackson ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, so I guess I could say I was inspired by Peter Jackson, and all the people involved in those films. I get inspired by people who make homemade videos on Youtube, or post their photos on Flickr. And I think I may even inspire myself on occasion, is that vain?

How or where did you learn how to stitch or sew?
It’s not completely clear, but sometime in my life I sort of figured out the basic ‘push the needle through the thing, then pull it back up and out’ to make a stitch. I don’t know under what circumstance I needed to know that. I remember watching my mother and grandmother use the sewing machine (an old one with a foot petal). I know my mother had a sewing basket and she used it to fix my clothes on occasion. But I was never formally taught by anyone. I do know that for me the purpose of making a stitch was strictly for joining two parts of something together -  like doctors suturing patient’s skin up, or for repairing a doll or clothes. Over the years I touched up some collages by stitching them together using string dipped in paint. I am not sure where I got that idea. When I did the small collages, thread was the appropriate size so I used that. That was about 3 years ago. It was during that experience when I realized that I could actually make forms using a buildup of stitches.

Are your current images new ones or have you used them before?
Years ago I was making images similar to what I am now, but none of them are exactly the same since I invent new ones for every work. I was doing collage and film work for years and during that time those images kind of stopped manifesting, but now it seems they are coming back, but not exactly the same.

How has your life shaped or influenced your work?
I have done some works that deal directly with the way I perceive my brain functioning to have affected my life.
I think my feelings toward my life, and life in general manifest themselves into my imagery as well, but that can be said for almost all artists. One thing I am interested in which I experience almost everyday is the contrast, or duality of things – the beauty and wonder, but also the drudgery, depression, loneliness and pain that accompanies it. It doesn’t seem that there can be one without the other, and that occupies me. I’m sure there are other things, but when I dig into my brain I can only pull out a little at a time.

What are or were some of the strongest currents from your influences you had to absorb before you understood your own work?
Well, I still absorb things from all over the place.
I always tried to make images with a certain ‘primitivism’ approach, and also a ‘hit and run’ approach like Basquiat did. Everything he made looked like he had just completed it a minute ago. I liked that excitement. But I think I needed to absorb his work so I could learn that I was UN-able to do that with my own work. I tried very hard. As for now, I can’t do embroidery in a ‘hit-and run’ fashion, but I like the images I am able to make. They are cruder than what I could do with a paint brush or pen. They are more limiting, or ‘clumsier’ and I can successfully make the kind of ‘dumb painter’ imagery I studied a lot of. I always looked at many expressionists and folk artists and had to find a way to make something look ‘expressionistic’ without looking too contrived.
Mixed media artists, like Robert Rauchenberg and Anselm Kiefer (and others) were important in learning how to incorporate a variety of textures and markings into one work.

Do formal concerns, such as perspective and art history, interest you?
Yes. Over the years, and continuing even now certain formal elements create a sort of a ‘base’ that I rest upon. This is used as a starting point and a ‘ground’ that I can then move away from, for a while at least, but then I always need to return to it.

What do your choice of images mean to you?
Well, for some pieces I think the images are a way of illustrating certain feelings I have. But there are other reasons, like, when I first started embroidery I was making images that I thought of as religious, like they were representations of spirits that I pretended to believe were real. I think that was to entertain myself because at that time I wasn’t showing my work to anyone. I don’t think in that way much now. In one piece I used demon images. Demons – like Gods, ghosts, Aliens, etc. have been used for years to explain causes for things that people otherwise cannot explain. Some of the personal problems I have cannot be exactly, precisely explained, so I used the demons in the same way. I had them surrounding an image of myself, as if they were the cause of my ills. They were also a metaphor for my frustrations, unhappiness and confusion, and other bad feelings I have regarding these problems. All of that may seem a bit negative, but at the same time I make my images strong and vivid and in that way they are celebrating the joy and beauty of life. I suppose that could illustrate the ‘duality’ I was talking about above.

Do you look at your work with an eye toward it like what can and can’t be visually quoted?  In other words what you will or won’t cut out?
You mean cut out to show a detail of? No. I mean, I do try to make an overall image that will be easily readable. Actually I have recently been caring less about that. As far as photographs or digital reproductions, I feel they all fail to show an accurate representation of the work. It needs to be seen in person.

Do you have any secrets in your work you will tell us?
I don’t think so. I like to be as ‘transparent’ about how/what I do as possible. I know I use certain imagery that looks symbolic, and therefore might look like there is an underlying intent only known to me, but there isn’t. I’ll be glad to explain anything I do to anybody. That’s what I try to do on my blog. Recently I have been making videos about current embroidery and I try to explain every part of what I’m doing. But I don’t think that type of explaining is very important. I actually prefer to hear what other people think of when they look at something I make. And some of the images are really just meant to be evocative.

How do you hope history treats your work?
If you mean on a large scale like popular art history, well, I don’t think about that since it I don’t think anything I do will ever be remembered or recorded on that level. On a smaller scale I don’t think it will be remembered long enough for it to be considered ’history’.

Where can we find you and your work?
Blog: http://flyinghaystackshandembroidery.blogspot.com/
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/todstitch/
Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/flyinghaystacks
Deviant Art: http://flyinghaystacks.deviantart.com

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eMbroidery was created with the support and wisdom of the magnificent Bascom Hogue.

Welcome to eMbroidery, a series of interviews with male embroiderers. This month, Mark Bieraugal aka FilmResearch.

Name: Mark Bieraugel

Location: Tacoma, Washington State, about 30 miles south of Seattle

Main embroidery medium: Floss on fabric, mostly vintage or thrift store fabrics.

Noteworthy projects or pieces: A series of 99 stitched coelacanths (fish)

How did you come to be an embroiderer? For some reason I got in my head to learn embroidery. Jenny Hart, the owner of Sublime Stitching came to Seattle to teach a small class, which I took. I had learned about Hart through her ‘Artist’ series of embroidery transfers which includes Gary Baseman, Jim Woodring, Tara McPhearson, and many other artists I admire. At the class I learned a few basic stitches and techniques of handling floss and have been stitching like a madman ever since.

One of my reasons for taking the class is that I wanted to create something like what was being done by so-called ‘low brow’ artists, people inspired by cartoons, the car culture, vinyl toys, and who often came from the world of illustration and graphic art but moved into the fine art world.

What does it mean to you? Finding embroidery was an amazing and life changing thing for me. I’ve always been a person who really loves museums, galleries, reading about art and artists, but have not had a way to join the conversation, to produce art in any way. Learning embroidery gave me a way to express myself in a totally new way. It opened the floodgates of pent up creativity and suddenly I was creating all sorts of new things. I love that embroidery has this incredible history, that there is a massive range of types of the stuff, from kitchen towels to sumptuous gold work.

Where do you like to work? I like to work at home, in front of the TV, where some television show keeps me company and takes my mind off of the sometimes tedious aspects of embroidery. I see from Penny Nickel’s video series ‘this is handmade’ that many others like sofa embroidering. I also like to stitch in public, especially when I am waiting for an appointment or just killing time. I am an out and proud embroiderer.

How do people respond to you as a male embroiderer? People sometimes stare a bit and look at me like I am a special breed of dog. The common thing people talk to me about is how they wish they had time to do hand work of some sort. They have a sort of apologetic attitude, like they should be stitching and feel guilty about not stitching.

Who inspires you? Not to be all kiss-ass but your group of writers and stitchers really make me work hard to up my game in my stitching. Folks which consistently inspire me are Ellen Schinderman, Penny Nickels, Bren Ahearn, and the ubiquitous Richard Saja. The illustrators and artists Ray Troll, Tim Biskup, Amanda Visell, and Mark Ryden inspire me.

One of my work colleagues and a fellow artist, Kendall Reid, really inspired me. He encouraged me to enter into a juried show. I entered, got in, and then found out there are many juried shows which accept fiber art.

Not really a ‘who’ but a what, as I am also inspired by ‘calls to artists’ for juried shows. These shows have themes which spark my creativity, and make me think about new things to stitch. I stitched up the “Visual System” and “Family Tree” pieces from that inspiration.

How or where did you learn you learn how to stitch or sew? I learned the basics of sewing from my Mother, learned more about sewing from a Home Economics class in 8^th grade, and learned to use industrial machines in costume shop as an undergraduate at the University of California at Santa Barbara.  I just got a vintage Kenmore 85 machine for Christmas which I am excited to use, not sure on what yet, but glad to have it.

Are your current images new ones or have you used them before? I work with images I have used before, like the coelacanth, as part of a series. I also develop new images for specific shows or for ideas I want to work on. Pretty early on I restricted myself to a smaller set of images as it forces me to be more creative in how I use them.

How has your life shaped or influenced your work? I was a heavy reader as a kid, specifically books on marine biology and the natural world. As a pre-teen I read the ‘biography’ of the coelacanth, about its rediscovery in the 1930s, and its specialness as a ‘living fossil.’ The idea of a creature which as somehow escaped time, slipped by somehow, still fascinates me.

I both love the new and am suspicious of it, so working with vintage fabrics, old transfers, even older fish, all of that stuff appeals to me. I am a bit of a magpie, snatching anything bright, shiny and interesting up and trying to use it somehow. Also I am gay so my series on beards, bears, and beefcake obviously springs from my personal interest in the subject.

What are or were some of the strongest currents from your influences you had to absorb before you understood your own work? I spent quite a few years in the Los Angeles area, and studied animation history and purchased animation art. Some of my pieces mimic a bit of the old type of animation art, where there is a clear animation cel with an image painted on it laid over a painted background. You can see this particularly in the piece ‘Cannonball Run’ but also on pieces which use a designed background and something laid over it.

Also it seems my Catholic background is some of bubbling up in my pieces.  You can see that in the ‘Ecclesiastical Coelacanth’ and in a forthcoming piece of a cowboy with flaming fish surrounding him a la the Virgin Mary. And my interest in Buddhism shows itself in my series of designer shoe bag prayer flags.

Do formal concerns, such as perspective and art history, interest you? They concern me in the sense that I believe I am now a small voice amidst the larger conversation between artists, art lovers, and those that pay attention to these things. Art history is an interest of mine, and I have been recently reading books specifically about fiber and needle arts history. I take inspiration from the past, but the past which doesn’t often fit into art history books, such as illustration, graphic design, Kidrobot-type artists, and animation.

What do your choice of images mean to you? I want to produce something which interests me, a thing which slows down my ever moving eye. I enjoy the idea of producing something new, something which hasn’t been seen before. I like the idea of a series, as it allows me to explore and create using a familiar image but work out different ideas, and reuse the image in new and surprising ways.

I like things which both surprise me, make me laugh, and are clever. Not all at once, but I often aim for that type of feeling in my work.

Do you look at your work with an eye toward it like what can and can’t be visually quoted?  In other words what you will or won’t cut out? In composing an image I tend to start simple, add to it, and then usually return to the original thought. In thinking about what can be cut I try and work on the edges of my piece, figuring how to use parts of figures, looking to create something dynamic and interesting. Over time I have made my figures, specifically my fish, more and more abstract. My first coelacanths were almost realistic, and now they are sometimes just blobs with fins.

Do you have any secrets in your work you will tell us? Not yet, but you’ll be the first to know.

How do you hope history treats your work? I would love for people to enjoy my work, to hang it up, to give them some pleasure. And maybe have a bit of mystery about it.

Where can we find you and your work? The best way is through Flickr.

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eMbroidery was created with the support and wisdom of the magnificent Bascom Hogue.