Exhibition at Social Fabric Gallery in Bellingham…Guest Blogger: Jane Clark

© Jane Clark – Orange Chameleon

© Jane Clark – Blue Chameleon – hand embroidery

Threadcentricity, The Art of Embroidery, An Exhibition at Social Fabric Gallery, 1303 Commercial Street, Bellingham, Wa. 98225 March and April, 2018

Thread-obsessed friends and I have a new show at Social Fabric in Bellingham.  There are eight of us, and we call ourselves Threadcentricity. We met through a year-long class at Gail’s, studying Level 2 Design and Hand Stitch, which ended in early July, 2017.  We decided to continue to meet every couple of months, which has been very inspiring.  It has been fun to see how differently we use the same materials. I enjoy embellishing some of my pieces with beads of various sizes.  Two of my pieces in the show are chameleons that have stitching and beadwork.  I got my inspiration from watching a program on the Smithsonian Channel one evening.  There was a chameleon walking on the sand early in the morning, trying to warm up.  The side of him that was toward the sun was black, to absorb the warmth.  The other side was white, and I had an “aha” moment:  two sides, two different color schemes.  I did some research, looking at countless photos of chameleons and picked one, a Panther Chameleon, with a pattern that attracted me, and then chose the colors for each side.  I did the stitching first, then added beads where I thought they would highlight each piece.  It was fascinating to see the little critters evolve as I stitched them, and finally, adding the beads was even better.           Jane Clark