Page 12 - The Digital Cloth issue 2
P. 12

If I had to define my approach to art, it               I can even remember the first appliqué I
        would be a modest attempt to sweep away                 ever did when I was at primary school; a
        the dust of daily life and make others see              monster with big buttons for his eyes and all
        that often the simplest of things can be the            sewn around the edge with blanket stitch.  I
        most beautiful.  I recently came across the             have really been sewing for as long as I can

        Swedish word ‘fika’, which describes a                  remember.
        moment to slow down and appreciate life.  I
        thought I would borrow this term to                     I like to capture people going about their
        characterize what I see as the purpose of my            everyday lives, often the simplest of things
        artwork.  To me, an artist is someone who is            can be the most beautiful.  I start off with
        capable of bending things that most people              a lineal drawing of the image and then the
        see as a straight line.                                 fun begins when I choose which fabrics to
                                                                use for the appliqué.  I carefully cut out the
        I don’t really know how I arrived where I               shapes and sew them in place with my
        am now with my artwork.  It was just a                  machine.  After that, I sew the rest of the
        natural progression of several factors.                 image with black thread, as though it were
        Creatively I have always been a Jack of all             my pencil line and finally, I add embroidery

        trades, as long as I was creating, I was                thread to highlight just specific parts in
         happy.  My grandmother was a very gifted               the image, which is what helps to bring the
        embroiderer and when we went to visit her,              pieces to life.
        she would give us big, blunt, needles and               Contact Ann at…
        small squares of canvas which we would                  anchoafabrics@gmail.com
        then fill with rows of stitches.                        www.instagram.com/anchoafabrics
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