Wednesday, June 03, 2009

magic

This embroidery was started two years ago and then left to simmer in a drawer. It has been very nurturing to work on it again, 'like a mother's arms'.

These days I'm also very slowly reading Jeanette Winterson - a few pages each day. I get stopped by the wonderful imagery she is able to bring up in my imagination. Here's another passage from her Oranges are not novel:

Magic was very important.
The chalk circle you drew around yourself to protect yourself from elementals and the like.
It's gone out of fashion now, which is a shame.
Of course people will laugh at you, but people laugh at a great many things, so there's no need to take it personally.
Why will it work?
It works because the principle of personal space is always the same. It's a force field around yourself, and as long as our imagining powers are weak, it's useful to have something physical to remind us.

3 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Thanks for the quotation from 'Oranges', been thinking about this subject a lot.

The clos-up picture shows it's true beauty, simplicity.

lee said...

wow - I love the embroidery. I think I need to work on more handwork.

Judy Martin said...

The stitch used is the back stitch.
The thread is silk twist.
The fabric is a piece of linen that I stretched and painted on with acrylic paint - then overdyed black and threw in the washing machine. It has such a distressed grey and blue colour way - but sets of the simply applied thread beautifully. Thanks for your comments.