Stitched Impressions: On the Road

The Traveling Art Studio: In fall 2019, my husband and I embarked on a “Grand Plan” to circle the US by Amtrak, planning to stop off in dozens of small towns and cities along the way–places he had visited before, but I had never seen.  My husband planned the entire project (I am hopeless at travel planning, but an avid traveler). To avoid exhausting us, he divided the travel into 7 separate 3-week trips, with breaks in between. He guided us with careful thought and logical decisions along the way.  As he began to get the grand scheme in place, I realized that I would be gone from home for long periods, without my usual access to studio and materials.  But I knew I wanted to capture impressions of the places we visited along the route while my experiences were fresh, and not wait to make work until I returned home. I also wanted to minimize the weight of any materials I carried along with me (we were carrying suitcase backpack on our backs and day packs on our fronts), and to streamline the stitching by setting up a structure and system for collecting and translating my experiences. To do all this, I assembled what I started to call my “Traveling Art Studio”—a lightweight array of selected preferred tools and materials, which would fit into two 1-gallon zip-loc bags to carry in my day pack.

Materials and Tools for the road: My trusty Olympus TG4 compact digital camera; one “Two-Go” Moleskine combination journal/sketchbook (5″ x 7″ with blank pages on the left, lined pages on the right); one 3″ x 5″ Moleskine watercolor sketchbook; one portable watercolor set, fitted with a brush with a water-holding handle; a soft plastic zippered pencil case containing my own preferred selection of colored and graphite pencils, markers, and pens—and tucked in its outer pocket, a 6″ ruler, square template, eraser, pencil sharpener, transparent tape, and glue stick. In a separate zip-loc bag, I carried a 6″ x 44″ length of silk noil with 21 pre-stitched 1.5″ x 1.5″ squares, ready to receive my daily stitched images; a small embroidery hoop; assorted needles, two thimbles, a needle-threader, nail clippers (instead of scissors); and several zip-loc snack bags of embroidery floss and lighter weight machine embroidery thread, sorted into color families (greens, blues, reds, purples, yellows, tans and browns, and black, white, grays). The entire studio (minus the camera) weighs less than 1 pound.

The process: During the day, as we moved around, I shot photographs, sketched with pen and colored pencils, sometimes made quick watercolors, and wrote notes and descriptions.  Each evening in the hotel room (while my husband was busy on the computer), I would choose the most powerful or memorable image of that day to translate into stich. My initial goal was to complete one tiny “vignette” each day and spend only 2-3 hours on stitching each one (as I found, a difficult pace to keep going).  I started each impression with a quick pencil sketch, first in my sketchbook, then directly on the fabric. But then I quickly moved to stitching, first laying in the major lines and planes, then filling in details. I depended on characteristic elements of the place, strong color sensations, and strength of memory to guide my choices. Because the compositional frames were small (1.5″ x 1.5″), every stitch had to count.  I could not achieve color blending or modulations by mixing threads in the needle, because two threads made too large a stitch for the image scale. Instead, I depended on setting colors side-by-side, letting them mix in the eye. In most cases, I found that “less was more.”

This way of working sharpened my vision as we traveled; taught me to carefully choose essential qualities to carry memory and meaning; and helped imprint specific places on my memory (speeding constantly forward by train, and covering long distances every day, sometimes confused my sense of where I was and where I had been).

How was it, working on the road?  It was satisfying and exciting at the same time. The more we traveled, I learned that with just a bit of free time, I could sit down, pull the “traveling studio” bag from my day pack, and stitch just about anywhere.  Hotel rooms were easy, well-lit, and comfortable. But I also found it possible to stitch on moving (or stopped) trains and airplanes; in station waiting rooms and airport lobbies; in public libraries or park benches; on front porches and outdoor cafes; and at restaurant tables and picnic tables.

The resulting strips expressively document our travels, and now provide me with tangible and pleasurable personal reminders of an amazing journey.

Click on the thumbnail images for enlarged versions.