Navigate Stitch Tapestry

104 cm X 160 cm

The Invention of the Navigate Stitch; Portrait of Bettina M.

free-motion or sewing machine embroidery on close-weave canvas using Egyptian cotton thread.

Date: 2017 (Created for the CCBC solo show ‘Portrait Lab’ )

Artist Statement:

Every element of this portrait comes from the subject: the stitching hands, the glasses, the hair, even the drape of the cloth she is stitching.  The ‘navigate stitch’ is a stitch I created based on the shape and movement of the boat under sail. I had asked Bettina to send me some images that reflect her; among other things, she sent me a photo of her dad’s boat. Her dad’s boat appears journeying off the edge of the canvas out of the scene, on the bottom right-hand corner.

I was also interested in working on a larger-than-life sized drawing, and experimenting with how this relates to the fabric, how does the fabric bend and drape and pull, how does this alter or work with the portrait? Starting with a small drawing done from the photograph, I scaled up to full size on paper first then transferred to the canvas as a simple pencil line. Once on the canvas I started working up of the background texture

The piece reflects the idea pushing the figure out of the surface of the canvas by the use of a heavily repeated stitch background. Instead of outlining the figure first, then doing the background, the background was first and the figure or portrait emerged from that.

Artist Bio:

Eleanor has been involved in the textile arts field including embroidery for most of her life in some way or another, even as she is also a painter and drawer, this informs her textile work. She thinks in cloth and thread combinations as they relate to drawing.
For many years Eleanor was doing variations on sewing machine or free-motion embroidery. She has been developing techniques in hand embroidery to create portraits and portrait commissions. More rerecently Eleanor has been developing techniques in textile narratives that allow for a dimensional surface that enhances the viewers experience of the stories she is telling. She is also trying out unexpected compositional elements including speech bubbles.
She has a BFA from the University of Manitoba and has exhibited work both as a drawer and painter and as an artist working in textiles in many locations in Canada and in the UK.