China: Embroidery and New Studio Work

Pillow details at the Holiday Inn

I keep seeing beautiful examples of embroidery everywhere, from details on hotel pillows, hung behind glass in temples, to remarkable stitching on shoes and fabrics.

Embroidery in Chengdu's Wenshu Temple

There are 4 different schools of embroidery in China, Xiang, Su, Yue and Shu embroidery, as well as the Miao minority style of embroidery. Shu Embroidery, associated with the capital of Sichuan Province Chengdu, is valued as highly as diamonds and jade. During the early Qing dynasty it was used to buy precious materials and fine horses; skilled craftspeople were encouraged to take up the trade by the Emperor, it was so desirable. 

I’m slowly making my way around my own embroidered piece of linen. Perhaps in contrast to the vastness of my location, the enormous distances between things, the speed with which things are built up and pulled apart here, I’ve felt the need to make slowly, to make something small. I felt wanted to labour over something. I wanted my medium to take its time to form, painstakingly, like all the mountains, hills, trees and valleys that I’d come across. I want to repeat small steps, in the way I climbed all those steps to reach the top of Emeishan, a holy mountain south of Chengdu.

I like the expanse of fabric that remains as yet untouched. Bare, grey linen is my material to try to cover, as I make ground physically, I’m making figure and space two- and three- dimensionally. Needle and thread are my tools, binding my journey with materials I find along the way, binding the process and the outcome, binding memory with image. Sewing feels like the act of remembering, something akin to sewing on a patch after you’ve been to a new location or gained a new skill in something. I want to gain the skill of patience.