So last October I was in Washington for an art show and extended family gathering to honor the life and work of my great-great grandmother at Sunnyshore Studio, and was invited to show something at the big island-wide Mother’s Day Camano Island Studio Tour that they participating in. This is super exciting, and coming up soon!
I wanted to take advantage of being in the area and track down some inspiration for an idea that I had been mulling over for a while. It hinged on finding the perfect tree – sure, there are trees everywhere, but it was important to me to use a specific tree from the island as the basis of the piece and go from there. So, I made my husband, father, and grandmother drive me around and search for the perfect tree. One that had character in the branches and bark, and would reflect the rain, wind, ice and sun that makes the area as beautiful as it is. While there are a lot of evergreens in the Pacific Northwest, I’m so glad it was the fall and able to find a tree without leaves – I do a lot of trees, and the movement and texture of the tree itself is so much more interesting to me without the pesky leaves getting in the way. Maybe someday I’ll come to appreciate tree leaves, but not yet!
One thing that I was excited about on this was experimenting with textures and shapes that I could create with the embroidery floss. I’ve done a few of these kind of pieces at this point, so I’m trying to refine the technique and figure out what the medium is able to do. I’m happy with the qualities of the bark, clouds, water, sky and grass. This is something that I am going to look to push further on the next embroidery floss piece I do.
I have added a canvas print of this piece to the Richfield Community Center where it will be displayed with some of my other prints through the end of May. I’ll be out in Washington at Sunnyshore Studio for the first weekend of the Camano Island Studio Tour from Friday, May 11th to Sunday, May 13th. The original will be displayed (and for sale) along with paper and canvas prints and handmade cards. There is a second weekend to the tour (Saturday the 19th and Sunday the 20th), but I’ll be back in Minnesota for Art-a-Whirl (more details on that to come).
Yes, that is my cat on the piece in it’s early stages – it is amazing I get anything done. You can tell she thought I was spending too much time gluing.
