Our COVID Collaboration

After family holiday meals growing up, my Uncle and I would make drawings together, each adding something as we passed it back and forth. It’s a lovely exercise, to work with and add to existing elements, a lot like the “yes, and…” philosophy in improv acting. It builds creativity, flexibility, and a generous spirit.

Each month I host a free Zoom call for workshop and retreat participants to share their work, talk, and stitch together. In July 2020, I suggested the idea of creating a collaborative piece. I stitched light blue thread on linen and then mailed it to New York. Ten people participated, each adding whatever they liked and then sending it to the next recipient. In the last week of August, the final embroiderer added her work. Here is the beautiful result.

For me, the most exciting part of making art is making connections between ideas, materials, colors, and forms. Sometimes it’s like following a trail of breadcrumbs to an unknown destination, and other times it all fits together like architecture, set on a foundation. I love looking at the interaction of forms and marks, thinking about how someone made decisions about what to do next. I see a little of each person in the stitches they made and the colors they chose.

When we stitch, we connect with each other and generations of embroiderers before us. Thank you, Shahnaz, Emily, Tiffany, Jennifer, Anne, Connie, Georgia, Lucy, Craige, and Lucinda, for contributing. You all felt a little closer during this project!

Embroidery with stitching by 11 people in The Netherlands and the United States. 7.25 x 6 inches.