The Sinister Stitch Chronicles

My friend Victoria Crowder Payne has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund her work and upcoming exhibit called The Sinister Stitch Chronicles. I can't describe it as well as Victoria has, so here is a summary from her Kickstarter page!

"Sinister Stitch is a mixed media embroidery project composed of two parts: the Exhibit (which will debut in October 2011) and the Chronicles (airing July through November 2011, with the feature film compiled at year's end)."

The exhibit will be "a mixed media embroidered collection consisting of 13 ancient poisonous botanicals anchored by a central personification of the Mandrake Root’s fabled consort: the Womandrake.  (Additionally, the Sinister Stitch poisons are Monkshood, Wolfsbane, Foxglove, Poets Narcissus, Black Hellebore, Snakeroot, Moonseed, Angel’s Trumpet, Rosary Pea, Hemlock, and Oleander.)" I love that she is using dangerous, beautiful plants and humanizing them. It's like a modern day fairy tale.

And the second part of her campaign is the documentary/webcasts: "The Sinister Stitch Chronicles include the web-casts beginning July 2011 that detail creating the exhibit and the documentary film project (scheduled for release in December 2011)."

Please jump on over to the Kickstarter page to read more about how to donate and get involved!

And here is one of the episodes available on Youtube. Victoria was so kind as to include a couple of my little pieces along with our other amazing, talented friends to illustrate different types of embroidery.



I love this episode so much because you can see the artist in her space, how she organizes herself, her beautiful family around her lending hands and paws to the project and just get a feel for who she is as a person. Her first episode was amazing as it described her inspiration for this project. I am a big believer in the subconscious influencing us, especially in our art. I've woken up in the middle of the night and connected an image to a feeling that I wanted to express in my embroidery. Those instances have always pushed me out of my creative blocks and the feeling when it happens is so very cool.

To get up to date news on this project with even more details, photos and inspiration, please see Victoria's blog here.

I hope you will take the time to get to know Victoria and her awesome art work. I am so excited to see this in person in the fall! Good luck Vic!!