{"id":4650,"date":"2016-05-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spindelmaker.bluesystems.no\/2016\/05\/02\/6-000-000-stitches\/"},"modified":"2016-05-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T00:00:00","slug":"6-000-000-stitches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spindelmaker.bluesystems.no\/?p=4650","title":{"rendered":"6 000 000 stitches"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The original idea was to show appreciation for the time, love and effort women throughout the ages have invested into transforming a house into a home, much via textiles. The contribution to society and world history has often been ignored, because it was in different fields. They took care of the \u201csmall world\u201d. While the men were out fighting for power and glory, they were the ones actually making the wheels of everyday go around. Mind you though, embroidery is not only for women! A lot of the vintage embroidery I\u00b4ve collected has been made by men. On the back of one needle-point it had the inscription: \u201cTo Linn on her 30th birthday. From Father-in-law\u201d.<\/p>\n

My wish has been to make a versatile exhibition of&amp;nbsp;embroidery. Hopefully you will find both old and new, humor and factual art, pure decoration and food-for-thought. There is both hand- and machine-embroidery. Both originals, lent to us by the public, and redesigned. There is guerrilla-embroidery and there are expressions of faith and beliefs. Hopefully there is something for everyone. There are also a lot of links to the different pieces here, if you want more information.<\/p>\n

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I will lead you through the exhibition, as if you were walking into the museum yourself. At the entrance, you are greeted by the embroidered go-cart<\/a>. And a collection of \u201cHome, sweet home\u201d-signs. My redesigned version says \u201cWelcome to the pleasure dome!\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

However, the first section is all about faith.<\/p>\n

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The part of the country I live in is sometimes called the Bible-belt, Christianity is traditionally strong here. I noticed this when I started collecting vintage embroidery. There were a couple of motifs that kept returning. This is one of them. The Bible on the table, the lighted candle in front of a curtained window.<\/p>\n

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The &amp;nbsp;prayer carpet is a textile collage assembled of vintage devotional pictures. Faith fascinates me. It is such an incredibly strong human emotion or quality. So many good qualities that inspire. And so horribly misused by men of power through the ages.<\/p>\n

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I made this russian-inspired icon of the arch-angel Gabriel back in 2002. In many ways, my part of the exhibition is a retro-view of my textile work. It covers several years and several techniques and motifs. Most of my focus has been on freestyle machine embroidery, ever since I first learned about it way back in 1990. So with few exceptions, my work is machine-embroidered, starting with the embroidered undergarments:<\/p>\n

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My black lace-bra<\/a> filled with male faces addresses who underwear really is made for: the user or the \u201cviewer\u201d?<\/p>\n

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Continuing the theme of underwear, I made a couple of \u201chipsters\u201d<\/a>. Vintage suspender-knickers<\/a> from the 60s now have a young, bearded hipster on each hip. And above, Polly<\/a> and Peter<\/a> pirate-parrots, who coincidentally color-match the hipsters.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMy life without me\u201d<\/a>. Here<\/a> and here<\/a>. These three pictures were made with the current refugee-crisis in mind. I was thinking of what it would be like if I was forced to leave my life, my home, my friends\u2026 Based on photographs from my life, I\u00b4ve removed the main person from the picture. Life would go on. I just wouldn\u00b4t be there.<\/p>\n

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The how-to-series: freestyle machine embroidered drawing<\/a>. I made this textile book as part of the experimenting with the grey &amp;nbsp;Elisabeth curtain<\/a>, and thought I\u00b4d include it in the exhibition. It explains part of the techniques I use and how I&amp;nbsp;design.<\/p>\n

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Elisabeth is my two-year old niece. A cute-as-can-be, very active and tough girl! Looking at the curtain with a dark background it appears to be a negative. While with a lighter background, it seems like a positive (like a photo). So in a way it shows an optical illusion, how the same shade of grey can appear very differently depending on the color of the background.<\/p>\n

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Here\u00b4s another photo, with Elisabeth\u00b4s big brother playing with the curtain.<\/p>\n

The big family-portrait is made of portraits of my large family.<\/a> All of the descendants from my Grandma, with spouses. I love my family! I mean, of course I would anyway, but they are really genuinely nice people who are fun to be with.<\/p>\n

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The portrait-gallery continues with my Dad, me, an old Chinese lady I met years ago in small village outside Beijing, my friend Torhild and finally my Grandma. This is what I will look like when I grow old. I might choose other glasses. And the hair might be blue \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Many years experience with bow and arrow<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It is the black dot in the middle of the target you have to hit, that one, that\u00b4s where the arrow should stand and quiver! But right there, &amp;nbsp;you don\u00b4t hit. You are close, closer, no not close enough. So you\u00b4ll have to go and pick up the arrows again, go back. The black dot vexes yo. Until you understand the arrow standing there quivering. Here is also a centre-point.<\/em><\/p>\n

Olav H. Hauge<\/em><\/p>\n

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I first heard this poem years and years ago, and it has stuck with me. I feel it carries a lot of life-wisdom in it. The machine-embroidered silver circle reminded me of a target and therefor the poem, and putting them together made sense to me.<\/p>\n

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The Elizabethan Gleaner-corset<\/a> is made form vintage needle-point embroideries. One of my first ideas for this exhibition came to me was this corset. It took two years before I made it, but it was an essential part of my idea-process.<\/p>\n

Women have embroidered for centuries, millenias even, and for the upper classes, it was one of few pastimes allowed. And therefore one of very few creative expressional outlets. I\u00b4m thinking that in some ways it may have been liberating to have this outlet. Unless you really hated embroidery of course. Then it might have been as constraining as the corset they were wearing\u2026<\/p>\n

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Suspended above us hags the golden mermaid-net<\/a>. It is&amp;nbsp;75 x 330 cm and sewn with gold thread, so you can catch some serious gold-diggers with it \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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The textile building-blocks, all 25 of them, made with vintage needle-point embroidery. The size is 40x40x40 cm and they have 240 000 needle-point stitches. Each. That makes 6 000 000 stitches all together. And that is what gave name to the exhibition. Six million stitches. Can you imagine all that time and effort devoted to this work? All the love put into making their houses into homes?<\/p>\n

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Towards the end of the exhibition some of the children finally deared to ask if they could play with the textile blocks. Which of course they could! Huge success! Instantly they turned into forts and towers and tunnels \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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Behind the building-blocks is a wall-hanging made from all the remnants from the vintage embroideries used in the blocks. Sewn together in a big textile collage, with the words \u201cJUST ADD COLOR\u201d sewn onto the background. Which I think is a pretty good saying in a lot of different situations. Life, for instance.<\/p>\n

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The dear-chair<\/a>&amp;nbsp;with table&amp;nbsp;<\/a>&amp;nbsp;looks like it came in handy \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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Guerilla embroidered art can be a lot of things. I\u00b4ve collected words and phrases typical of our dialect, and traces them onto linen, and embroidering them. These are the only pieces I\u00b4ve embroidered by hand. Each piece is 10\u00d710 cm and has 2500 hen-stitches.<\/p>\n

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Guerrilla embroidered art-wall with works by Trude Grini Olsen and me. &amp;nbsp;She\u00b4s a super-talented textile-lady, with some hard-kicking guerrilla-embroidery. I\u00b4m much more diplomatic, it turns out \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

\u201cA matter of perspective<\/a>\u201c, \u201cMothers<\/a> can do anything, know everything, and are always right.\u201d, \u201cDon\u00b4t worry<\/a>, that\u00b4s Mom\u00b4s job\u201d, and finally: \u201cAre you sure tho is where you lost the car-keys?\u201d<\/p>\n

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Fabiola<\/a>, patronage&amp;nbsp;for the outcasts, painted by Jean-Jaques Henner in the 1880s is also part of the exhibition. The biggest picture is an oil-painting. All the others are embroidered versions, and not one of them are the same. A good example of how personal preferences and creativity is reflected in the works.<\/p>\n

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A few photos from the opening. From left to right: me; Trine Hjertholm who opened the exhibition, former national Art Group leader; Trine Kyvik, productioncoordinator\/curator at the museum; Trude Grini Olsen, guerrilla-embroider-champion; and finally Jane Junger, manager at the museum.<\/p>\n

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A little baby-girl playing with the textile boxes.<\/p>\n

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An antique sofa filled with pillows old and new. Yes, that is a pin-up you see there. Trude\u00b4s work. Gotta love a pin-up-pillow!<\/p>\n

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Old embroidered samples made by Maria Haldorsen in the 1930s. They are so exquisite, we had to mount them in plexi-glas, so you could see the back-side too. Incredible!<\/p>\n

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The information-posters made:<\/p>\n

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An overview of the room.<\/p>\n

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We placed four embroidered rococo-chairs around an antique, round table filled with unfinished pieces, to invite anyone to sit down and have a go.<\/p>\n

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Some the more valuable and fragile pieces we put in a glass-box. The silk-christeing-gown is from the 1890s, and I bought it in Plymouth a hundred years later. The textile bags beside it, are examples of the gym-bags we had to sew in school when I was a kid. I think my is in the attic, I could\u00b4t find it, but luckily we got some to show. EVERYONE over 40 today will remember these. &amp;nbsp;The tilted square one with the roses on, was a potholder!<\/p>\n

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We didn\u00b4t have room for all the embroidered pieces we wanted to, but decided to make a little booklet of some of them. Also showing the original print of a picture, and a bigger one, finished. At one point in history there were over 120 factories in Berlin printing these. And they hade over 140 000 patterns to choose from.<\/p>\n

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The museum even made new signs for the restroom-doors. I adore these rococo-signs for this purpose!<\/p>\n

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Thank you Sunnhordland Museum for co-operating&amp;nbsp;with me on this project! And thank you Sparebanken and B\u00f8mlo Municipally for the finical support!<\/p>\n

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The original idea was to show appreciation for the time, love and effort women throughout the ages have invested into transforming a<\/p>\n

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