JavaScript is required

Project in Progress: Driftpoints_Needlepoint concepts explored through printmaking (2024)

<p>Transfer print of needlepoint surface yarn to separate mesh, 2024, yarn, glue, cotton mesh, 40x60cm</p> <p>Picking out stitches one by one and collected (see next image)_found vintage needlepoint</p> <p>Collected stitches from found needlepoint</p> <p>Transfer print of needlepoint surface yarn to separate mesh, 2024, yarn, glue, cotton mesh, 30 x 50cm</p> <p>Found needlepoint with surface ground down to the mesh (except for the sky); collected ground yarn, 2024, 20 x 30cm</p> <p>Detail of found, vintage needlepoint with surface ground down to the mesh, 2024, 20 x 30cm</p> <p>Brushed found needlepoint, 25 x 34cm</p> <p>Brushed found needlepoint, 30 x 40cm</p> <p>Detail of brushed found needlepoint, 30 x 40cm</p> <p>Studio wall showing cluster of experimental research pieces</p> <p>Found 50&#8217;s stitch-counting chart and legend; experimental carbon transfer prints</p> <p>Experimental print using carbon transfer</p> <p>Experimental print using carbon transfer</p> <p>A few of my vintage needlepoints</p> <p>Unfinished needlepoint encased in carbon paper, 2024, 80x60cm, vintage needlepoint, glue, carbon paper</p> <p>Detail of unfinished needlepoint encased in carbon paper showing maker&#8217;s needle, 2024, 80x60cm, vintage needlepoint, glue, carbon paper</p> <p>Unfinished needlepoint encased in carbon paper, 2024, 40x60cm, vintage needlepoint, glue, carbon paper</p> <p>Studio process wall showing experimental needlepoint and print work</p> <p>Print of the back of a vintage, bargello needlepoint showing constellation of knots, 2024, carbon transfer print on paper, 60 x 80cm</p> <p>The needlepoint verso matrix used to make previous image</p> <p>Process wall showing prints of vintage needlepoint backs</p>
In 2017, I purchased a three-dollar needlepoint of Jean-Francois Millet’s The Gleaners (1857) at a flea market, which ignited my many-media project, Driftpoints. Discovering that needlepoint in a pile of discarded textiles, my impulse to save it mirrored the image of peasant women rescuing scattered wheat berries. I sought out more versions, and these became my foundational working material. The first installment of Driftpoints was the exhibition Meshes (2022).
As I continued to study needlepoint's conceptual and cultural density, diverse explorations across various media began to emerge. I experimented with printing surface fibers onto a separate mesh, grinding down their surface to free fibers into soft dust, brushing them into impressionist painterliness, picking out the stitches one by one, printing their versos, or encasing unfinished ones in carbon paper. Emergent themes like body/grid, constraint/freedom, and surface/depth led me on a cascading journey of creating new objects that is still ongoing. This ever-expanding process maps paths of evolution and transformation, offering a quiet, ecosystemic-like understanding of change.
This project is still evolving—both materially and conceptually—and has opened up other directions such as Pressure Points, Unfinished Unraveled, and Unstitched Printed (visible in Works), with new questions emerging that I will continue to develop.

Related works