long threads

 

It has been a busy week and I unfortunately hadn't had time to post.  So here goes something of a catch up post. 

I had my annual physical and was really moved to see this magnificent building on the same block as my doctor's office. Sadly the building is no longer being used as the musician's union building and has been taken over by a local hospital. This made me think of my friends who are musicians and how sad it is that the great era of unions is no more.

I finished my work on the pinot that Darone created for his wedding tallit with three corners made to honor his twin sons and wife and this wonderful New York skylike that he made for himself.

Darone and his family came by last Sunday afternoon to tie the tzitzit together.

  

I was a bad blogger and took no photos. I guess I preferred to stay in the many lovely moments and not pull myself out by taking photos.

As anticipated, there were a few tears, but perhaps a few less than I anticipated. The past and the present and the future all got neatly tied together in one hour.

Darone and his family presented me with two gifts. One was a box of chocolate covered coffee beans made my a local chocolatier. I have lived in the neighborhood since 1982 and this was actually the first time I had had any of their chocolate...and it was excellent.

The other gift was this book.

Darone's fingers are itchy to get started on a new needlepoint project. he mentioned to me that he was thinking about learning stitches beyond the tent stitch.

I immediately knew which book Darone should get.

I first took up needlepoint when I was eleven and I got pretty serious about it. I was so serious about needlepoint that my parents let me play hooky from school one day to go to a few hours of a needlepoint convention that was taking place in a Boston hotel. They even gave me some birthday money to spend at the marketplace of the convention.

I found this book and was just blown away. I see in the front flap that it cost $15.95 which is about equivalent to $100 bucks today. For me at that point the book was a giant purchase and a giant commitment. The book was also my constant companion for many years. It contains an excellent history of embroidery on canvas. The real treasure of the book are the hundreds of stich diagrams

I didn't have very much of a social life in those days so every night, after i finished my home work I would sit down with a book, a bit of canvas and wool and try to figure out

how to master these stitches.

Over the years i made some small items using these stitches as gifts. One of my sisters used to finish off my work on her sewing machine.

Mostly though I just worked for the pleasure of it. This book is the foundation, the very beginning, of who I am today as an artist who works with textiles. In those years, most needlepoint was made to mimic the looks of something else, a Chagall window, an antique Chinese plate, early American samplers. this book taught me to think about design and texture and about thinking of myself not just as a mimicker but as a creator.

Re visiting this book made me dig up a piece I did during those years. It was a collaborative effort.my father asked David Holleman ( the artist who collaborated with my father on making our synagogue beautiful) to come up with the basic design. As I type this I remember that Mr. Holleman had drawn the design on paper which I put behind the canvas and then traced. I chose the wools, the colors and the stitches.

I haven't looked at this piece since in came into our apartment after the death of my parents.

Re visiting this book made me dig up a piece I did during those years. Clearly the first thing that I see is that I should have done a better job on the lettering.

When I did the piece I was really proud of the bargello rays of light emerging from the ten commandments. I don't plan to put it up in my house but it has been lovely to revisit  this piece that I made when I was in my mid teens.

I so loved working with Darone on helping him take on the mantle of making needlepoint tallit bags-- a task he took on from his late mother. I first met Darone as my needlepoint years were coming to an end and he was a little kid. I am grateful to have had this moment bring me back to my earliest life as someone who worked with textiles. And if you had suggested to me in 1982 that the rambunctious boy in my after-care class would be a lovely mancollaborating with me in 2026 I just would not have believed you.