Embroidered Collage

Wendy definitely had a different perspective than other artists I'd talked to and while I didn't agree with all of it, it was very interesting to hear.  I took 5"x5" photographs of all my Footsteps with me to QSDS.  As she pointed out before she began, working off the photograph and not being able to see the texture in person could have influenced her opinion.

The key point that Wendy brought up was that she didn't feel that my focal points were integrated properly into the rest of the work.  For example, in First Shades of Autumn, the fabric trees were too bright for her and she felt they needed a film of color, which surprised me as I was always slightly annoyed by a bright spot in the background.  She felt that the issue stood out most sharply with Exhalation, the bright color of the pulled thread portion being too distinct from the background, which she really liked.  She also thought the background of City Garden Silence was intriguing, but that the counted thread portion was distracting and too fiddly in comparison.  She thought they might make great inspiration, but should not necessarily have been on the final piece.

I'm sitting here thinking - "But that was the POINT".  I created the rest of the artwork to feature and integrate with the embroidery.  But maybe the contrast is too great, and without knowledge of my intent the work is weaker.  Maybe a more gradual transition in scale and texture would have been more effective.  I did ask her why she didn't object to Kite-Flying in Zandvoort on the same grounds.  She said she thought it was because she knew how to interpret the painting, as it was representational.  On the other hand, she wasn't impressed with the figure or its presence, which was fine with me, because I knew it was a stretch for me putting it in.

We didn't talk about Migration since it didn't end up quite as I intended and she had a great idea for Summer Sunshine - if I'd just put one more square in the vaguely empty area then it might have pulled together more.  She didn't comment much on Kambaba Jasper, apparently because she like it the way it was.  Which is good, because it is my favorite of the work I've done so far.  I've decided I won't offer that one for sale anymore, but rather keep it for myself.